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Boot disk structure on Integrity servers

·2 mins
Hp-Servers Hp-Ux
Table of Contents

The boot disk/disks of every Integrity server are divided into three partitions:

  1. EFI Partition: Contains the necessary tools and files to find and load the appropriate kernel. Here resides for example the hpux.efi utility.
  2. OS Partition: In the case of HP-UX contains the LVM or VxVM structure, the kernel and any filesystem that play a role during the boot process.
  3. HP Service Partition (HPSP).

EFI Partition #

The Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) partition is subdivided into three main areas:

  • MBR: The Master Boot Record, located at the top of the disk, a legacy Intel structure ignored by EFI.
  • GPT: Every EFI partition is assigned a unique identifier known as GUID (Globally Unique Identifier). The locations of the GUID s are stored in the EFI GUID Partition Table or GPT. This very critical structure is replicated at the top and the bottom of the disk.
  • EFI System Partition: This partition contains the OS loader responsible of loading the operative system during the boot process. On HP-UX disks the OS loader is the famous\efi\hpux\hpux.efi file. Here is contained also \efi\hpux\auto file which stores the system boot string and some utilities as well.

OS Partition #

The OS Partition obviously contains the Operative System that runs on the server. An HP-UX partition contains a LIF area, private region and public region.

The Logical Interchange Format (LIF) boot area stores the following files:

  • ISL - Not used on Integrity.
  • AUTO - Not used on Integrity.
  • HPUX - Not used on Integrity.
  • LABEL A binary file that contains the records of the locations of /stand and the primary swap.

The private region contains LVM and VxVM configuration information.

And the public region contains the corresponding volumes for:

  • stand: /stand filesystem including the HP-UX kernel.
  • swap: Primary swap space.
  • root: The root filesystem that includes /, /etc, /dev and /sbin.

HP Service Partition #

The HP Service Partition, or HPSP, is a FAT-32 filesystem that contains several offline diagnostic utilities to be used on un-bootable systems.

Juanma.