NAME

lifinit − write LIF volume header on file

SYNOPSIS

lifinit [−vnnn] [−dnnn] [−n string] file

DESCRIPTION

lifinit writes a LIF volume header on a volume or file.  options can appear in any order. Their meanings are:

−vnnn Sets volume size to nnn bytes.  If nnn is not a multiple of 256, it is rounded down to the next such multiple. 

−dnnn Sets directory size to nnn file entries.  If nnn is not a multiple of 8, it is rounded up to next such multiple. 

−n string Sets the volume name to be string. If the −n option is not specified, the volume name is set to the last component of the path name specified by file. A legal LIF volume name is 6 characters long and is limited to uppercase letters (A-Z), digits (0-9) and the underscore character (_).  The first character (if any) must be a letter.  The utility automatically performs translation to create legal LIF volume names.  Therefore, all lowercase letters are converted to uppercase, and all other characters except numeric and underscore are replaced with a capital letter X.  If the volume name does not start with a letter, the volume name is preceded by a capital letter X.  The volume name is also right-padded with spaces or truncated as needed to be six characters long.  If −n is used with no string, the default volume name is set to 6 spaces.

If file does not exist, a regular HP-UX disk file is created and initialized. 

The default values for volume size are 256 Kbytes for regular files, and the actual capacity of the device for device files. 

The default directory size is a function of the volume size.  A percentage of the volume size is allocated to the volume directory as follows:

Each directory entry occupies 32 bytes of storage.  The actual directory space is subject to the rounding rules stated above. 

Do not mount the special file while using lifinit.

DEPENDENCIES

Series 300/400
Media that has never been initialized must be initialized using mediainit(1) before lifinit can be used (refer to HP-UX System Administrator manuals for details concerning mediainit).

Series 700/800
The following options are also supported:

−snnn set the initial system load (ISL) start address to nnn in the volume label.  This is useful when building boot media for Series 700/800 systems. 

−lnnn specifies the length in bytes of the ISL code in the LIF volume. 

−ennn set the ISL entry point to nnn bytes from the beginning of the ISL.  For example, specifying −e3272 means that the ISL entry point is 3272 (decimal) bytes from the beginning of the ISL object module. 

−Knnn forces the directory start location to be the nearest multiple of nnn × 1024 bytes from the beginning of the volume.  This is necessary for booting Series 700/800 systems from LIF media. 

EXAMPLES

lifinit −v500000 −d10 x
lifinit /dev/rdsk/1s2

AUTHOR

lifinit was developed by HP. 

SEE ALSO

lifcp(1), lifls(1), lifrename(1), lifrm(1), lif(4). 

DIAGNOSTICS

lifinit returns exit code 0 if the volume is initialized successfully.  Otherwise it prints a diagnostic and returns non-zero. 

WARNING

To prevent media corruption, do not terminate lifinit once it has started executing. 

Hewlett-Packard Company  —  HP-UX Release 8.05: June 1991