AIX question

Thu Jun 17 14:17:18 PDT 2004

Jennifer Davis wrote:

> The box is in Atlanta.  The SE is claiming the serial console isn't giving
> him an option to go to single user mode.  From my understanding he should
> see a menu whether he is on a serial console, or attached with monitor and
> IBM keyboard.  I have barely touched AIX, so I'm asking in the hope that
> someone with many years of AIX experience can pipe up and say "Yes he
> should be able to see this menu and press 5 to get to single user
> boot from the serial console".

Oh, I thought you wanted to reboot the running system you just couldn't access
over the 'net via telnet/ssh (which I addressed in a previous message).  Push
the orange reset button on the front of the box and watch the serial console.

IBM calls single user mode "service" mode; every hardware device has it's own
quirks for getting there.  On the older boxes you had to turn a key and press
the reset button.  Newer ones you can just reboot and hit the key while it's
booting.

For the newer pSeries hardware, if you don't have an HMC attached (the spiffy
graphical console), the firmware searches the serial ports for the console.
You can specify a specific serial port as the console by sending data after
"0K" displays on the LED panel but before the POST sequence starts.  Once the
console is selected, watch the serial console and when you see the POST you hit
the key to start the service mode boot.  A '5' will use the stored bootlist
(default is floppy, CD, hard disk, tape, network -- but this can be changed via
the 'bootlist' command).

If memory serves, you want to hit it when you see the hardware detection (e.g.
keyboard, etc) BEFORE the last piece of hardware is found (I think it's
"speaker" on mine, but it's been at least 6 months since I've rebooted one of
these things in service mode...

Email me off list if you want any of the pSeries service manuals and I'll send
you the PDF's.  They're immensely useful for this sort of thing.  ;-)

Rich
--
Rich Holland        (913) 645-1950        SAP Technical Consultant
print unpack("u","92G5S\=\"!A;F]T:&5R(\'!E<FP\@:&%C:V5R\"\@\`\`");