Description

This article explains how to clear the "BIOS Boot from secondary flash" system alarm on MX devices.

Symptoms

The following active alarm is seen:

1 alarms currently active
Alarm time               Class  Description
2021-04-14 05:33:52 UTC  Minor  VMHost 1 BIOS Boot from secondary flash

Solution

The probable cause is that the "host" booted up from secondary flash (Routing Engine bootloader), rather than the primary one.

To resolve this issue, perform the following procedure via CLI/Console.

In this example, RE1 is booted from secondary flash. Hence, the procedure below is executed on Routing Engine 1.

  1. Reboot RE1 from the backup Disk:

labroot@re1> request vmhost reboot disk2 
Reboot the vmhost ? [yes,no] (no) yes 

warning: Rebooting re1
Initiating vmhost reboot...  Cmos Write successful
Cmos Write successful for Boot_retry
Cmos Write successful for Boot_retry
...
  1. After reboot, log in to RE1. Since you are on Disk 2, a new alarm will appear:

FreeBSD/amd64 (re1) (ttyu0)
login: labroot
Local password:
--- JUNOS 16.1X8.3 Kernel 64-bit  JNPR-10.3-20180310.ba55661_build

Note: VMHost is currently running from an alternate disk.

labroot@re1> 

2 alarms currently active
Alarm time               Class  Description
2021-04-14 06:32:10 UTC  Minor  VMHost 1 Boot from alternate disk
2021-04-14 05:33:52 UTC  Minor  VMHost 1 BIOS Boot from secondary flash
  1. Recover the primary partition:

labroot@re1> request vmhost snapshot recovery partition    
warning: All existing data on the target media will be lost
Proceed ? [yes,no] (no) yes 

warning: Proceeding with vmhost snapshot partition
Current root details,           Device sdb, Label: jrootp_S, Partition: sdb3
sh /etc/install/mk-mtre-partition.sh P
Estimated raw partition sizes:
ESP/SPARE/ROOTP/ROOTB/PV/SWAP: 954, 1908, 4770, 4770, 34346, 477
Aligned, Estimated raw partition sizes:
ESP/SPARE/ROOTP/ROOTB/PV/SWAP: 952, 1904, 4768, 4768, 34344, 472
Estimated LVM partition sizes:
PV/LVMROOT/LVMJUNOS/LVMVM/LVMSPARE: 42968, 3437, 34374, 6445, 0
Aligned, Estimated LVM partition sizes:
PV/LVMROOT/LVMJUNOS/LVMVM/LVMSPARE: 42968, 3432, 34368, 6440, 0
Aligned, adjusted raw and LVM partition sizes:
ESP/SPARE/ROOTP/ROOTB/PV/SWAP: 255, 255, 2048, 2048, 42968, 128
PV/LVMROOT/LVMJUNOS/LVMVM/LVMSPARE: 42968, 3432, 32784, 6440, 304
*****************
...

Snapshot admin context from current boot disk to target disk ...
Proceeding with snapshot on primary disk
Mounting device in preparation for snapshot...
Cleaning up target disk for snapshot ...
Creating snapshot on target disk from current boot disk ...
Primary disk is recovered now. Please issue "request vmhost reboot" to boot from the primary disk.
Software snapshot done
...
  1. After successful completion of step 3, perform below steps to boot from the primary disk.

labroot@re1> request vmhost power-off 
Power-off the vmhost ? [yes,no] (no) yes 
Initiating vmhost shutdown...  ok
Initiating Junos shutdown...  shutdown: [pid 5537]
Shutdown NOW!
ok   

*** FINAL System shutdown message from root@re1 ***              
System going down IMMEDIATELY    

labroot@re0> request vmhost power-on other-routing-engine 
Apr 14 06:37:52
Routing Engine 1 power-on initiated, use "show chassis routing-engine" to verify

If problem persists, contact Support .

Modification History

2021-12-27: Added suggestion to contact Support if problem persists