This is a followup on my cautionary msg of what happened when I accidentally
tried to install v4.0B options:
OSFXADMIN410
OSFXPRINT410
OSFXSYSMAN410
onto a Digital UNIX V3.2D-1 (Rev. 41) system. DO NOT TRY TO INSTALL SUBSETS
THAT ARE EVEN A REVISION NEWER ONTO YOUR SYSTEM UNLESS DEC EXPLICITLY INSTRUCTS
YOU TO DO SO, AND DO NOT DO IT WITHOUT HAVING AN EXCELLENT FULL SAVE DONE
IMMEDIATELY PRIOR TO THE INSTALL!!!!!!!!! I used "setld -l /dev/rz4c"
and selected the options for install. The installation failed, with the error
"rm: no such file", among others. Immediately upon exiting the install,
I found that the following were gone:
binaries missing: /usr/bin/rm,more,man,egrep,awk,/usr/lbin/fverify
links missing: /lib, /sys
new links: /shlib
directories missing: /usr/man, /usr/adm
files missing: /etc/termcap
and more. A "setld -i" showed:
OSFBASE350 installed Base System (- Required -)
OSFBASE360 installed Base System - Patch 001 (- Required -)
OSFBASE410 corrupt Base System (- Required -)
I heard from one other sysmanager, who reported:
"I just spent almost all of today recovering from exactly the same thing.
I was running DU4.0 and decided to install one subset with setld. The
result was catastrophic as the /bin link went away but most importantly
the file /usr/shlib/libc.so. Almost nothing works without that command.
I managed to get a copy of libc.so from a backup, and then did an
installupdate to recover. I can't believe this happens, especially
when uname -a lists them both at V4.0, with some cryptic number
afterward."
so it appears this catastrophic behavior may not be limited to totally
different versions, may also appear at diff. revisions of the same version.
I also heard from Dr. Tom Blinn, who said (among other things):
"I *would* have thought the V4.0x install scripts would
prevent you doing that. But I doubt it's been tested. It may well be
a bug, and from the sound of it a serious one."
I tried restoring things as I found them missing, but ultimately had to
completely restore "/" and "/usr" from a backup. Thank the powers that be
that we had done a full save early that same day!!!
--
Judith Reed
jreed_at_appliedtheory.com
Received on Mon Aug 11 1997 - 16:35:24 NZST