OSMGR(1M) — Series 500 Only

NAME

osmgr − operating system manager package description

HP-UX COMPATIBILITY

Level: HP-UX/NON-STANDARD

Origin: HP

Remarks: This entry describes the operating system manager package, which is implemented on the Series 500 only.

Not supported on the Integral Personal Computer.

DESCRIPTION

This group of three commands helps you manage the operating systems which reside in the boot areas on your Structured Directory Format (SDF) volumes. The package includes:

oscp copy systems or create them from ordinary files;

osck check operating system integrity;

osmark mark an operating system file as loadable or not loadable, or inquire about current state of operating system file.

Oscp, osck, and osmark are multiple links to a single program.

Boot Areas:

Each SDF volume has one boot area consisting of zero or more contiguous logical blocks. The boot area is completely outside the file area. Its size is determined when the volume is initialized. To change the size of a boot area, you must re-initialize the volume.

Each boot area may contain at most (one part of) one operating system.

The logical block size for a boot area is the same as that for the rest of the volume (i.e., whatever size you request when you initialize the volume).

Operating Systems:

Every HP 9000 operating system consists of a series of code segments. An operating system may reside in the boot area on one volume, or it may be distributed in sections over several volumes (not necessarily with a whole number of segments per volume).

An operating system can also reside in a number of ordinary files, each containing a whole number of segments, and terminated by two null bytes. This is the same format used for BASIC/9000 BIN files. In this form, the system is not loadable, but its files can be combined into a loadable system by oscp.

Operating System Files:

Each boot area contains zero or one operating system files (OSF’s). If an operating system resides in sections in several boot areas, each section occupies one OSF on one SDF volume.

Operating System File Headers:

Each OSF starts with a header that includes a "loadable" flag, a volume number, and the total number of volumes over which this operating system is distributed. The loader only boots an OSF if it is marked loadable. If required, it requests additional volumes until it has loaded from all volumes in the set. You should ensure that all parts of a multi-volume operating system are marked loadable.

Each OSF header also includes an 80-character identification string. The loader displays this string before it starts to load from each volume.

RETURN VALUES

The following list contains all the possible return values, mnemonics, and meanings given by OS manager commands:

0 no error;

1 USAGE bad argument list;

2 FILESYS error during file system access;

3 VOLSEQ volumes mounted out of order;

4 VOLCONT bad volume (not SDF, no boot area, etc.);

5 HEADER invalid or inconsistent OSF header(s);

6 FIRSTSEG first segment is not a power-up segment;

7 SEGTYPE incompatible segment system types or revisions;

8 SEGLEN segment length out of range or not whole words;

9 CHECKSUM segment checksum does not match reference value;

10 TERM system terminator ("−1" word) missing.

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