A/UX: How to Copy Eschatology Partition


Article Change History
----------------------
08/31/92 - REVIEWED
* For technical accuracy.


I need to copy an A/UX system from one drive to another, but I have a problem
with the A/UX Eschatology partition. I set up the partitions on the new drive
as on the first drive, except for some free space, which I have configured as
usr space. I did a dd copy of the root partition.

I then hoped that by doing an eupdate I would be able to update the Eschatology
partition. When I try this (I am able to boot from the new drive without any
problem), I get messages about the inability to mount s3 and attempt to unmount
slice 3. (I have not defined any slice 3.) Further messages refer to
typewriter problems and the like.

What is the problem? Why is eupdate attempting to mount a slice that doesn't
exist?

From what you described above, you copied only the root file system. You did
not copy the Eschatology partition to the new drive. To copy the Eschatology
partition, do the following (assuming X is the source disk SCSI ID and Y is the
target disk SCSI ID), and assign slice 3 for the Eschatology partition:

# pname -cX -s3 "Eschatology 1"
==> /dev/dsk/cXd0s3
# pname -cY -s3 "Eschatology 1"
==> /dev/dsk/cYd0s3
# dd if=/dev/dsk/cXd0s3 of=/dev/dsk/cYd0s3 bs=20k
# pname -u /dev/dsk/cXd0s3
# pname -u /dev/dsk/cYd0s3

Then, you can issue the "eupdate" command, which updates /unix and network
files like /etc/HOSTNAME, /etc/NETADDRS, ... for Eschatology partition. Make
sure that before doing "eupdate" that the Eschatology partition is not pnamed
or mounted, because the "eu" program automatically does all the "pname", "pname
-u", "mount", and "umount" on the Eschatology partition.

You might have got the error message from "eupdate", because the Eschatology
partition was still pnamed or mounted. "umount" and "pname -u" the Eschatology
partition and do "eupdate" again. Other similar error message like

Can't mount...:No space left on device

might occur if the Eschatology file system is almost full. In that case,
remove some of the files like /mnt/unix from the Eschatology file system and do
"eupdate" again.

To remove file(s) from the Eschatology partition, you have to "pname" and
"mount" the Eschatology partition first. For example, to remove "unix" from
Eschatology partition then "eupdate":

# pname -cY -s3 "Eschatology 1"
==> /dev/dsk/cYd0s3
# mount /dev/dsk/cYd0s3 /mnt
# rm /mnt/unix
# umount /dev/dsk/cYd0s3
# pname -u /dev/dsk/cYd0s3
# eupdate


Published Date: Feb 18, 2012