Booting in a DPM partition from a SCSI boot device

Edit online

6.18 DPM partition

You can boot Linux® in a Dynamic Partition Manager (DPM) partition from an FC-attached SCSI disk using the Hardware Management Console (HMC).

Before you begin

  • You need a boot device that is prepared with zipl. For more information about SCSI boot devices, see Table 1.
  • You must have the SCSI IPL feature (FC9904) installed.
  • SCSI boot devices are FC-attached disk volumes. In DPM mode, the HMC interface presents such disk volumes as part of SAN storage groups. To set up a SCSI disk as a boot device, you must know its storage group and the UUID that identifies it.

About this task

In Dynamic Partition Manager (DPM) mode, the boot process is initiated by the Start task for the partition. Before you can run the Start task, you must configure a boot volume for the partition. Subsequent boot processes for the partition use the configured boot volume configuration.

The steps that follow assume DPM version R3.1 or later. For more information about DPM, see Dynamic Partition Manager (DPM) Guide for your IBM Z® or IBM® LinuxONE hardware.

Procedure

Perform these steps to set up and boot from a SCSI boot device for a DPM partition:
  1. On the HMC, navigate to your partition.
    1. Expand Systems Management and select the hardware system that you want to work with.
    1. Select your partition on the Partitions tab in the content area.
  2. Unless it is already configured, set up the boot device.
    1. In the Tasks area, click Partition Details (see Figure 1).
      Figure 1. Task area on the HMC

      Screen capture of the Hardware Management Console. In the Tasks area click Partition Details.
    2. In the left navigation pane of the Partition Details panel, select Boot to open the Boot tab.
      Figure 2. Boot tab of the Partition Details panel

      Partition Details panel as described in the surrounding text
    3. From the Boot from drop-down list, select Storage Group(SAN).
    4. Optional: For boot images in the secure-boot format, select the Secure Boot option. For more information about secure boot, see Secure boot.
    5. In the Storage Group section, select a storage group and a boot volume.
    6. Boot configurations only: The Boot program selector field applies only to boot configurations that are part of a menu configuration that is created by zipl.
      Enter the configuration number that identifies the boot configuration within the menu into this field. Configuration number 0 specifies the default configuration.
    7. Type kernel parameters in the OS Load parameter field.
      These parameters are concatenated to the end of the existing kernel parameters that are used by your boot configuration when booting Linux. The combined parameter string must not exceed a length that is set when the kernel is compiled.

      Use ASCII characters only. If you enter characters other than ASCII characters, the boot process ignores the data in this field.

    8. Accept the defaults for the remaining fields.
    With a configured boot device, you can boot according to step 3. Alternatively, you can boot with the zhmc command, see Using the HMC Web Services API to boot in DPM mode.
  3. Boot from the configured boot device.
    1. Go to the HMC Task area for your partition.
    2. Expand the Daily section, and click Start.
    3. Optional: Check the output on the preferred console to monitor the boot progress.

      For information about IPL progress messages that are issued before the Linux kernel gets control, see Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) IPL Machine Loader Messages, SC28-7006.

What to do next

You can repeatedly boot with the configured boot device settings. Proceed according to step 3.

To change the boot device settings, proceed according to step 2.