Why can't Johnny read? (mount under AIX 1.3)
Louis Ohland
In my efforts to better understand (and exploit!) AIX 1.3, I've tried
to figure out the Extended (L)User Support. The (L)Useability Services
under 1.2.x started the learning package with "exploring".
I'm trying (all a gelding can do as well) to read the Extended User
Support diskette on my AIX box. "mount" shows only the minidisks loaded
(hd1 to hd6, or whatever). No fd0 is mounted.
So, with the EUS diskette in the drive, I whips out "mount /dev/fd0
/diskette0" and AIX shoots me down with a complaint on a global number
is too big.
"mount /diskette0" blows chunks, AIX claims there is nothing there. I
try a "cd /diskette0", AIX takes it quietly, then "lf" returns the
command prompt.
"/etc/filesystems" has no fd0 listed.
Pete Backhouse
there has to be a better way than installing the entire system from floppies!
pete
---------------------------------------------------------
posted via the ps/2 usenet archive at http://www.ps-2.org
John Poltorak
>on a related note... does anyone know what format the disk images are in? tried mounting one on my linux box using a loop back device and ufs,jfs and vfat - but no luck!
>
>there has to be a better way than installing the entire system from floppies!
>
>
I'm hoping someone can come up with instructions for installing from a
network...
>pete
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------
>posted via the ps/2 usenet archive at http://www.ps-2.org
>
>
--
John
Douglas Hall
"Pete Backhouse" <pe...@ps-2.org_NO_SPAM_> wrote in message
news:3e1b4399$0$167$65c6...@mercury.nildram.net...
> on a related note... does anyone know what format the disk images are in?
tried mounting one on my linux box using a loop back device and ufs,jfs and
vfat - but no luck!
>
> there has to be a better way than installing the entire system from
floppies!
After a bit of experimenting witht the various formats (dd, tar, cpio etc,)
it finally turns out the format of the floppies is the aix backup format.
# man -k backup
should reveal some information on the various commands for manipulating
backup images and
# /etc/restore -T
on one of the OS floppies (try the first on in a series) should list the
contents of the archive.
installp seems to be quite happy working with an image of the disk, so you
could use dd to extract the contents of a floppy to harddisk and install
that way, e.g.:
<output copied from the 9595>
# dd if=/dev/rfd0 of=/tmp/devtoolsimage1 bs=128k
# installp -d /tmp/devtoolsimage1
000-123 Warning: Before you continue, etc.,
<snippage>
Do you want to continue with this command? (y or n)
y
Please mount volume 1 on /tmp/devtoolsimage1
...and press Enter to continue
files restored: 1
-
The program " Adv. Dev. Support Tools(PS2)"
will be installed.
Do you want to do this? (y/n)
<end of output copied from the 9595>
There is also an installt (install from tape) command which I suppose could
be used to create a tape of all the various distributions quite easily. Not
having a tape drive, I cannot test this :)
Install over the network is the next challenge!
-Douglas
Douglas Hall
"Louis Ohland" <ohl...@charter.net> wrote in message
news:3E1B2253...@charter.net...
>
> So, with the EUS diskette in the drive, I whips out "mount /dev/fd0
> /diskette0" and AIX shoots me down with a complaint on a global number
> is too big.
>
> "mount /diskette0" blows chunks, AIX claims there is nothing there. I
> try a "cd /diskette0", AIX takes it quietly, then "lf" returns the
> command prompt.
>
> "/etc/filesystems" has no fd0 listed.
"mkfs /dev/fd0" creates a disk that can be mounted via "mount /dev/fd0
/diskette0"
"fdformat /dev/fd0" creates a disk that I cannot mount under AIX or freebsd
(even with a mount_msdos command), although freebsd identifies it as a "PC
formatted floppy with no filesystem". Maybe I am missing some installset to
get AIX to recognise dos formatted floppies?
As alluded to in my previous posting, it doesn't look like you can 'mount'
any of the floppies made from the .img files on the ftp archive, only
extract with '/etc/restore'
-Douglas
Douglas Hall
"Douglas Hall" <> wrote in message
news:avfr5m$jg0$1$8302...@news.demon.co.uk...
>
> There is also an installt (install from tape) command which I suppose
could
> be used to create a tape of all the various distributions quite easily.
Not
> having a tape drive, I cannot test this :)
Um, what I meant to say was it could be possible to 'dd' all the .img files
to a tape and then use installt to restore from tape rather than use
installt to make the tape.
-Douglas
Pete Backhouse
> installp seems to be quite happy working with an image of the disk, so you
> could use dd to extract the contents of a floppy to harddisk and install
> that way, e.g.:
>
>
> # installp -d /tmp/devtoolsimage1
excellent! since all i have right now is a whole bunch of disk images at least i could ftp them over once installing the BOS and basic networking.
> There is also an installt (install from tape) command which I suppose could
> be used to create a tape of all the various distributions quite easily. Not
> having a tape drive, I cannot test this :)
this might be a cool idea. shouldn't be too hard to wack them all onto a tape. any idea of block size to use??
there *must* be a way of installing over the network! it's silly... i work at IBM and can't find any information on AIX PS/2 anywhere on the intranet! guess i just don't know where to look??
Gereon Wenzel
describes a four Disk install from an existing AIX system.
This must be some kind of a networking install,
so it must be possible at least?
Gereon
John Poltorak schrieb:
Louis Ohland
Louis Ohland
I get a long blank space between the intro and the table with the *.boo.
Louis Ohland
John Poltorak
>http://www.ps-2.org/ps2/html/inst/aixinst-8.html
>describes a four Disk install from an existing AIX system.
>This must be some kind of a networking install,
>so it must be possible at least?
>
>
I would like to try this, but don't have an existing AIX system....
But if it installs over TCP/IP, that existing AIX system could in
principle be anywhere in the world.
Unfortunately I don't have a direct connection to the Internet over
Token Ring, although it may work through a proxy... Anyone interested
in trying this out?
>Gereon
>
>John Poltorak schrieb:
>
>
>
>>I'm hoping someone can come up with instructions for installing from a
>>network...
>>
>>
>>
--
John
Pete Backhouse
> http://www.ps-2.org/home/site/axis/AIX_1.3/AIX_Documents
>
> I get a long blank space between the intro and the table with the *.boo.
fixed-ish. should really add a link back to bob's site too!
pete
Pete Backhouse
PS/2 Archive: www.ps-2.org
Server 500, Server 520, PC 750 x3, Mod95 x8, Mod85, 577, 9576i x3, 9590, PS/2E,
P70, 8580-486, 8580, 8560, 700C slc2, 9557slc3, 9556slc3/slc2. L40sx, 8533, 8556slc
Douglas Hall
"John Poltorak" <j...@eyup.org> wrote in message
news:10419762...@ananke.eclipse.net.uk...
> Pete Backhouse wrote:
>
> >on a related note... does anyone know what format the disk images are in?
tried mounting one on my linux box using a loop back device and ufs,jfs and
vfat - but no luck!
> >
> >there has to be a better way than installing the entire system from
floppies!
> >
> >
> I'm hoping someone can come up with instructions for installing from a
> network...
Further to previous messages, it looks like the AIX1.3 Install Disk can be
directly mounted on a running AIX system using the mount /dev/fd0 command,
although it does give some error(?) message in response:
llama# mount /dev/fd0 /mnt
mount: No entry in /etc/filesystems has global file system number 298, pack
number 1
llama# ls /mnt
.profile dev mnt tmp
adm etc shlib usr
bin generic t
llama#
Now, this tiny distribution of aix comes with a few useful tools, including
the restore command (remember that is a command that can extract the files
off the other disks). It should be possible to edit the startup scripts on
this disk to prompt for another disk (or however many is needed) to setup
networking, and then install via nfs or by ftp'ing the images across.
Hmm, you'd need still need to create the minidisks first (looks like that is
done via the /mnt/etc/maint command). Whatever - from a first glance it
certainly looks feasible to install everything with less than the 90 or so
diskettes required if it is all done with the floppies.
Anyway, it is something to be working with.
-Douglas
--
ho hum
Rick Ekblaw
> http://www.ps-2.org/ps2/html/inst/aixinst-8.html
> describes a four Disk install from an existing AIX system.
> This must be some kind of a networking install,
> so it must be possible at least?
Yes, it is possible. I just read those instructions, and noticed that
it mentions two "special" diskettes - install.net (netinstall) and
netmagic. This tells me that the host machine had at least the PTF
0013 patch set installed on it, and more likely had the PTF 0024 patch
set. Until we have at least PTF 0013 available to us, a network
installation is probably going to be "just out of reach".
On the other hand, consider the original hint given to us several
months ago (see http://www.gilanet.com/Ohlandl/6152/AIX_For_PS2.html,
the last line - "The point of this is to make it clear- Install from
CD takes 19 floppies."). You need to make the 2 boot diskettes, the
install diskette, the 15 BOS diskettes and the CD-ROM support
diskette. Install the BOS and CD-ROM support, set up the CD-ROM, then
install *everything else you want* from the image files on the CD-ROM,
as Douglas has proven can be done.
Rick Ekblaw