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From: fsfacca@AVELON.LERC.NASA.GOV (Tony Facca)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re:  reconfiguration, please
Message-ID: <9102081540.AA11085@avelon.lerc.nasa.gov>
Date: 8 Feb 91 15:40:23 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 38


> After recently upgrading from 3.2 to 3.3.1 about 4 times out of 5
> when we reboot our 4D80GT we get the message:
> 
> Automatically reconfigure the operating system (y or n)?
> 
> What part of the operating system does it want to reconfigure?  Why does
> it want to reconfigure?  Why so often?  Why no other messages?  

In your root directory there are 2 files, one called unix and another (probably)
called unix.install   The unix.install file signals the system at startup time 
that you have configured a new operating system which needs to be installed.  
Normally, the system will replace unix with unix.install and come up normally.  

In the directory /usr/sysgen/master.d you probably have another executable
version of unix, quite possibly called unix.install or unix.new   This version 
is the result of doing an "lboot -u unix.install" from the ../master.d 
directory.  Somewhere in the reboot procedure, the system notices this file and
realizes that it should reconfigure the operating system, and you get prompted.
The system creates a new /unix.install but doesn't do anything to the file in
../master.d, so the next time you reboot, the same thing will happen.

If you check the dates/times on all three versions of unix and make sure that
the file called /unix is the most recent, you can delete /unix.install and
/usr/sysgen/master.d/unix.install.   The idea is to not have an executable
version of unix in the /usr/sysgen/master.d directory, since this is causing
the problem.  When you use lboot to reconfigure a new kernel, use the option
"-l /unix.install" to make sure the new version is placed in the correct
directory.

Hope this helps.


--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tony Facca   |   fsfacca@avelon.lerc.nasa.gov      |     phone: 216-433-8318
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      You are at Witt's end.  Passages lead off in *all* directions.