Reconfigure reboot in u9

Question

hi there ..
i needed to perform reconfigure reboot, i also touched /reconfigure and did with -r, removed etc/path_to_inst but result is always this (in case of `{0} ok boot -r` and removed path_to_inst):
WARNING: /etc/path_to_inst empty or not found
NOTICE: using backup instance data in /etc/path_to_inst.old
why ^^ for a god's sake .. did it change in u9 ??
i removed some devices which are just no longer in system and they are still in path_to_inst:
"/virtual-devices@100/channel-devices@200/network@1" 1 "vnet"
`devfsadm -Cv` prints nothing same as dladm is no longer seeing vnet1:
# dladm show-dev
vnet0 link: up speed: 0 Mbps duplex: unknown
^^ it is T5240 LDOM:
# ldm list -l ldom2
NAME             STATE    FLAGS   CONS    VCPU  MEMORY   UTIL  UPTIME
ldom2            active   -n---   5002    24    4032M    0.0%  26m
SOFTSTATE
Solaris running
VCPU
    VID    PID    UTIL STRAND
    0      88     0.4%   100%
    1      89     0.3%   100%
    2      90     0.3%   100%
    3      91     0.3%   100%
    4      92     0.3%   100%
    5      93     0.3%   100%
    6      94     0.3%   100%
    7      95     0.3%   100%
    8      96     0.3%   100%
    9      97     0.0%   100%
    10     98     0.0%   100%
    11     99     0.0%   100%
    12     100    0.1%   100%
    13     101    0.0%   100%
    14     102    0.0%   100%
    15     103    0.0%   100%
    16     104    0.0%   100%
    17     105    0.1%   100%
    18     106    0.0%   100%
    19     107    0.0%   100%
    20     108    0.0%   100%
    21     109    0.0%   100%
    22     110    0.0%   100%
    23     111    0.0%   100%
MAU
    ID     CPUSET
    9      (88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95)
    10     (96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103)
    11     (104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111)
MEMORY
    RA               PA               SIZE
    0x4000000        0x304000000      4032M
VARIABLES
    auto-boot?=false
    boot-device=disk0
    keyboard-layout=US-English
    use-nvramrc?=true
NETWORK
    NAME             SERVICE                     DEVICE     MAC
    vnic0            vsw@primary                 network@0  00:14:4f:fb:73:21
DISK
    NAME             VOLUME                      TOUT DEVICE  SERVER
    disk0            disk2@vds0                       disk@0  primary
VCONS
    NAME             SERVICE                     PORT
    ldom2            vcc0@primary                5002thanks and regards, daniel
Edited by: 826387 on Jan 7, 2011 3:33 AM

Answer 1

Hmm, are you certain it did change in u9? I've never removed the path_to_inst myself, and i suspect that booting without it can be troublesome since the system might need information from path_to_inst to find its boot device.
The manpage (which has been unchanged since 2007) states that:
WARNINGS
If the file is removed the system may not be bootable (as it
may rely on information found in this file to find the root,
usr or swap device). If it does successfully boot, it will
regenerate the file, but after rebooting devices may end up
having different minor numbers than they did before, and
special files created via mknod(1M) may refer to different
devices than expected.
For the same reasons, changes should not be made to this
file without careful consideration.
So i'm a bit curious what you gain by removing it?
.7/M.