SUMMARY: max size of root partition

From: Mark Belanger (mark_belanger@ltx.com)
Date: Tue Aug 18 1998 - 07:22:13 CDT


ORIGINAL POST:
>I'm getting conficting reports about the maximum
>size of the / partition under solaris 2.5.1.
>
>Every document I can find says that the max filesystem
>size is 2 TeraBytes. However, people are telling me
>that root has a 2 gig limitation.
>
>Is this true for all Sparcs for only for some
>architectures.

APOLOGIES:
   This was a classic case of RTFM. Although I checked the
   Solaris FAQ, I missed the relevant entry. This post could have
   been avoided with a little more effort on my part.

THANKS TO:
   Joe Pruett <joey@q7.com>
   Stephen Harris <sweh@mpn.com>
   Kevin.Sheehan@uniq.com.au (Kevin Sheehan {Consulting Poster Child})
   "Ing. Aranda Roman Roberto" <william@zea.chapingo.mx>
   anders@hmi.de (Thomas Anders)
   Casper Dik <casper@holland.Sun.COM>
   Matthew Atkinson <m.atkinson@csl.gov.uk>

AND SPECIAL THANKS TO:
   Matthew Stier <Matthew.Stier@tddny.fujitsu.com>
   who provided the most complete answer

SOLUTION:
> The max root partitions size is bootprom revision dependent.
>
> From SunSolve BugID: 1234177:
>
> glenn.weinberg@Eng 1997-10-16
> The root partition offset limitations are based on PROM
> version, not system
> architecture. The limits are as follows:
>
> PROM versions 1.0-2.6: 1GB
> PROM versions 2.6-2.99: 2GB
> PROM versions >= 3.0: No practical limit
>
> Note that the 1GB limitation is documented in bug ID 1089903,
> which is in the
> See Also field of this bug report. It is also documented in
> the publically
> available Solaris 2 FAQ.

THE SOLARIS FAQ SAYS:

   5.58) I installed Solaris on a big disk, but now booting fails.

    Due to limitations in Openboot PROMs, you can't boot any of the 32bit
    SPARCs (sun4c, sun4m, sun4d) from a root partition that has parts lying
    beyond the 2GB mark on a SCSI disk.

    On systems with really old PROMs (revision 2.5 or less) you need to
    make the root partition smaller than 1GB.

    The Ultra PROMs are capable of this, but Solaris prior to version 2.6
    also has a bug which effectively prevents Ultras from booting from
    large root partitions too. Patch 103640-08 or later fixes this
    for Solaris 2.5.1, so later 2.5.1 HW releases should be OK too.

    --- end of excerpt from the FAQ

Thanks to all.

-Mark



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