[OpenIndiana-discuss] Another GRUB/loader problem, or two

[Gary Mills]

I just did an upgrade on one of my systems, from a hipster of
2017-04-29 to a hipster of 2017-11-04.  It ran normally, with no
errors.

On reboot, I got the GRUB menu, but it didn't show the new BE, but
only the old ones.  When I let it reboot automatically, the BE of
2017-04-29 was running again.  Clearly, the GRUB BE menu had not been
updated.

I decided it was time to change from GRUB to loader.  I mounted the
new BE as instructed, and ran:

    bootadm install-bootloader -MfvR  /mnt

Then I unmounted the BE and rebooted once again.  This time, I got the
loader menu.  When I let it boot automatically, I got these two lines:

    Loading unix...
    Loading /platform/i86pc/amd64/boot_archive...

After that, there was no further output.  The console was dead.

This system uses a remote console, through ipmitool.  It had worked
before with GRUB.  The GRUB BE menu had specified:

    kernel$ /platform/i86pc/kernel/$ISADIR/unix -B $ZFS-BOOTFS,console=ttyc

A remote login worked, even though the console was dead.  It was
running the new BE.

So, I added:

    console="ttyc"

to /boot/loader.conf, did the second `bootadm install-bootloader', and
rebooted again.

This time, it all seemed to work.  I could see the whole boot process
on the console, followed by the banner and the login prompt.

We have one, or perhaps two, problems with the upgrade still.  It
didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped, but ultimately it did work.  At
least, there are solutions for all the problems.


-- 
-Gary Mills-		-refurb-		-Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada-