sourCEntral - mobile manpages

pdf

ZIPL

NAME

zipl − boot loader for IBM S/390 and zSeries architectures

SYNOPSIS

zipl [OPTION] [SECTION]

DESCRIPTION

zipl is a boot loader tool for IBM S/390 and zSeries machines. It can be used to prepare devices for initial program load (IPL). The following functions are supported:

-

booting a Linux kernel with optional ramdisk and kernel command line

-

taking a snapshot of the current system status (system dump)

-

loading a data file to initialize named saved segments (NSS)

Each of these operations is characterized by a boot configuration, i.e. a set of required parameters. zipl supports two ways of specifying a boot configuration:

-

command line: all parameters are provided through the command line switches described below. Using this mode, only a single boot configuration can be specified.

-

configuration file: parameters are provided by sections defined in a configuration file (see zipl.conf(5)). Using a configuration file, you can either specify a single boot configuration or a menu, i.e. a list of configurations defined by a special section.

To use a single boot configuration section, provide its name as parameter to zipl. If zipl is called without parameters, it searches the configuration file for a section marked as default.

Boot menu

The zipl tool implements a boot menu which includes the following features:

-

display a list of available configurations

-

allow to choose a configuration

-

allow to specify additional kernel command line parameters

See the zipl.conf(5) man page for details on how to use the boot menu.

OPTIONS

−h or −−help

Print usage information, then exit.

−v or −−version

Print version information, then exit.

−c <CONFIG FILE> or −−config=<CONFIG FILE>

Use the specified <CONFIG FILE>. If none is supplied, the environment variable ZIPLCONF is evaluated if set, otherwise /etc/zipl.conf is used.

−t <TARGET DIRECTORY> or −−target=<TARGET DIRECTORY>

Use the specified <TARGET DIRECTORY>. zipl uses this directory to store the bootmap, i.e. a file containing boot data. The actual boot loader is installed onto the device containing the target directory. Supported devices are DASD and SCSI disks.

It is not possible to specify both this parameter and the name of a menu or configuration section on the command line at the same time.

−T <TAPE DEVICE> or −−tape=<TAPE DEVICE>

Install bootloader on the specified <TAPE DEVICE>. Use this option instead of the ’target’ option to prepare a tape device for IPL.

It is not possible to specify both this parameter and the name of a menu or configuration section on the command line at the same time.

−i <IMAGE[,ADDRESS]> or −−image=<IMAGE[,ADDRESS]>

Use the Linux kernel image file <IMAGE>. An optional hexadecimal ADDRESS may be provided to specify a non-standard load address for the image file.

It is not possible to specify both this parameter and the name of a menu or configuration section on the command line at the same time.

−r <RAMDISK[,ADDRESS]> or −−ramdisk=<RAMDISK[,ADDRESS]>

Use the ramdisk image <RAMDISK>. An optional hexadecimal ADDRESS may be provided to specify a non-standard load address for the ramdisk file.

It is not possible to specify both this parameter and the name of a menu or configuration section on the command line at the same time.

−p <PARMFILE[,ADDRESS]> or −−parmfile=<PARMFILE[,ADDRESS]>

Use the kernel command line stored in file <PARMFILE>. An optional hexadecimal ADDRESS may be provided to specify a non-standard load address for the parameter file.

It is not possible to specify both this parameter and the name of a menu or configuration section on the command line at the same time.

−P <PARMLINE> or −−parameters=<PARMLINE>

When installing a kernel, use the kernel command line <PARMLINE>. When --parmfile is specified as well, the contents of the parmfile and <PARMLINE> are appended to form the resulting command line.

It is not possible to specify both this parameter and the name of a menu section on the command line at the same time.

−s <SEGMENT,ADDRESS> or −−segment=<SEGMENT,ADDRESS>

Use the segment image <SEGMENT>. The mandatory hexadecimal ADDRESS specifies the load address for the segment file.

It is not possible to specify both this parameter and the name of a menu or configuration section on the command line at the same time.

−d <DEVNODE[,SIZE]> or --dumpto=<DEVNODE[,SIZE]>

Install a system dump record on the device identified by DEVNODE. Supported devices are DASD ECKD or FBA disk partitions and IBM 3480/3490/3590 tape devices.

An optional decimal SIZE parameter may be specified to determine the maximum dump size in bytes. SIZE can be suffixed by either of the letters K, M or G to signify that the decimal number be interpreted as kilobytes, megabytes or gigabytes respectively. SIZE will be rounded up to the next megabyte boundary. Note that when you specify a SIZE lower than the actual memory size used by linux (see kernel parameter mem=), the resulting dump will be incomplete.

Note that on partitions formatted with the ECKD/linux disk layout, the dump record will be overwritten by system dump data so that it can be used for IPL only once before the system dump record has to be installed again. Partitions formatted with the ECKD/compatible disk layout allow for an arbitrary number of subsequent dumps.

It is not possible to specify both this parameter and the name of a menu or configuration section on the command line at the same time.

−D <DEVNODE[,SIZE]> or --dumptofs=<DEVNODE[,SIZE]>

Install a dump record on the target device which writes system dumps to the file system on the disk partition identified by DEVNODE if supported by the hardware.

An optional decimal SIZE parameter may be specified to determine the maximum dump size in bytes. SIZE can be suffixed by either of the letters K, M or G to signify that the decimal number be interpreted as kilobytes, megabytes or gigabytes respectively. SIZE will be rounded up to the next megabyte boundary. Note that when you specify a SIZE lower than the actual memory size used by linux (see kernel parameter mem=), the resulting dump will be incomplete.

It is not possible to specify both this parameter and the name of a menu or configuration section on the command line at the same time.

−m <MENU> or --menu=<MENU>

Install the multi-boot configuration defined in menu section <MENU> of the configuration file.

This option cannot be used together with either −−target, −−image, −−ramdisk, −−parmfile, −−parameters, −−segment, −−dumpto or −−dumptofs.

−n or −−noninteractive

Answer all confirmation questions with ’yes’. This option may be useful when zipl is called from within a shell script or in other situations where no user interaction is possible.

−V or −−verbose

Provide more verbose output.

−a or −−add-files

Copy all specified files to the bootmap file instead of just referencing them. This option allows specifying files in a boot configuration which are not located on the target device.

−−dry−run

Print the results of performing the specified action without actually changing the IPL records. This option can be used to test a configuration since all error-checking is still done.

Note that when working with tapes, the current device position will be changed even when specifying this option.

EXAMPLE

1. Scenario: prepare disk for booting a Linux kernel image using the following parameters:
- the directory /boot is located on the boot device
- /boot/image contains the Linux kernel image
- /boot/ramdisk.img contains a ramdisk image
- /boot/parmfile contains the kernel parameter line

The respective zipl call reads:

zipl -t /boot -i /boot/image -r /boot/ramdisk.img
-p /boot/parmfile

2. Scenario: prepare DASD partition /dev/dasda1 for system dump:

zipl -d /dev/dasda1

SEE ALSO

zipl.conf(5)

pdf