Booting as a z/VM guest from a tape device

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 z/VM guest

Boot Linux® by issuing the IPL command with a tape boot device. The boot data on the tape must be arranged in a specific order.

Before you begin

You need a tape that is prepared as a boot device. A tape boot device must contain the following items in the specified order:
  1. Tape boot loader code

    The tape boot loader code is included in the s390utils RPM.

  2. Tape mark
  3. Kernel image
  4. Tape mark
  5. Kernel parameters (optional)
  6. Tape mark
  7. Initial RAM disk (optional)
  8. Tape mark
  9. Tape mark

All tape marks are required even if an optional item is omitted. For example, if you do not provide an initial RAM disk image, the end of the boot information is marked with three consecutive tape marks. zipl prepared tapes conform to this layout.

Procedure

Perform these steps to start the boot process:

  1. Establish a CMS or CP session with the z/VM guest virtual machine where you want to boot Linux.
  2. Ensure that the boot device is accessible to your z/VM guest virtual machine.
  3. Ensure that the correct tape is inserted and rewound.
  4. Issue a command of this form: 
    #cp i <devno> clear parm <kernel_parameters>
    where
    <devno>
    is the device number of the boot device as seen by the guest virtual machine.
    parm <kernel_parameters>
    is an optional 64-byte string of kernel parameters to be concatenated to the end of the existing kernel parameters that are used by your boot configuration.