Network Installation Management Guide and Reference

Booting in Maintenance Mode

If you need to perform maintenance on a standalone machine that is not part of the NIM environment, the system must be booted from a bootable tape or CD-ROM. This may require connecting an external device. If the machine is part of a NIM environment, you can enter maintenance mode directly by enabling the maint_boot operation for a NIM standalone machine.

From Web-based System Manager

1. Select the Machines container.
2. In the contents area, select a target standalone machine you want to enable for maintenance boot.
3. From the Selected menu, choose Troubleshooting --> Enable Maintenance Boot.
4. Use the dialog to select a SPOT resource from which to boot.

From SMIT

Initiating the maint_boot Operation from the Client

1. Enter the smit nim_client_op fast path.
2. Select the maint_boot operation.
3. Select the SPOT to be used for the operation.
4. Press Enter to enable the client for maintenance boot.

Initiating the maint_boot Operation from the Master

1. Enter the smit nim_mac_op fast path.
2. Select the client's machine object.
3. Select the maint_boot operation.
4. Select the SPOT to be used for the operation.
5. Press Enter to enable the client for maintenance boot.

From the Command Line

To issue the maint_boot operation from the client, enter:

nimclient -o maint_boot -a
spot=SPOTNAME

To issue the maint_boot operation from the master, enter:

nim -o maint_boot -a spot=SPOTNAME
CLIENT

To verify that the maintenance boot operation worked:

1. On the client, enter:

   nimclient -l -l ClientMachineObjectName
   

2. On the master, enter:

   lsnim -l  ClientMachineObjectName
   

If the operation was successful, the client's Cstate output will look similar to the following:

Cstate = maintenance boot has been
enabled

For the machine to boot into maintenance mode, follow the procedure for issuing the BOOTP request from the client. See Booting a Machine Over the Network for more information about initiating a BOOTP request.

Using Maintenance Mode

After successfully booting and defining the console, the System Maintenance menu is displayed. The maintenance menu options and their descriptions are described below. Detailed information about maintenance mode can be found in the AIX 5L Version 5.1 Installation Guide.