Can Ignite provide non-disruptive cloning to alternate boot disk?

[Gerard Demers]

I'm looking for a way to create a bootable clone of my system on an alternate drive on the same system. This would be used for fallback from system changes such as bad maintenance or configuration booboos. I know this can be done disruptively with Ignite by making a recovery tape, booting off it and installing to the alternate drive. Is there a way to lay down the image without disrupting operations on the machine I'm trying to clone?

[Pete Randall]

Gerard,

I would think that just plain old dd should do the trick!


Pete

[Patrick Wallek]

Yes you can do this via dd. Check out the follow thread, specifically A. Clay Stephensons response.

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/parseCurl.do?CURL=%2Fcm%2FQuestionAnswer%2F1%2C%2C0x206d42308663d611abdb0090277a778c%2C00.html&admit=716493758+1068484838734+28353475

[Steven E. Protter]

You don't need to use Ignite to do this.

Follow this procedure:

pvcreate -B /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0 #use real disk

mkboot -l /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0
mkboot -a "hpux -lq (;0)/stand/vmunix" /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0 # use real disk


# mkboot -b /usr/sbin/diag/lif/updatediaglif -p ISL -p AUTO -p HPUX -p PAD -p LABEL /dev/rdsk/c?t?d?

If you are running 64-bit OS:

# mkboot -b /usr/sbin/diag/lif/updatediaglif2 -p ISL -p AUTO -p HPUX -p PAD -p LABEL /dev/rdsk/c?t?d?


vgextend /dev/vg00 /dev/dsk/c1t0d0 # same thing
lvextend -m 1 /dev/vg00/lvol1 /dev/dsk/c1t0d0

# real disk. repeat for other lvols

lvlnboot -r /dev/vg00/lvol3 # root fs /
lvlnboot -s /dev/vg00/lvol2 #swap
lvlnboot -d /dev/vg00/lvol2 #swap/dump
lvlnboot -b /dev/vg00/lvol1
lvlnboot -R
lvlnboot -v
setboot
setboot -a 52.1.0 # second disk

This will set up an alternate boot disk.

What you do prior to maintenance is to break the mirrors with lvsplit, protecting them.

Can Ignite be used to do this?

Yes, you can use make_net_recovery to copy the vg00 configuration to another server. You can use make_tape_recovery to make a bootable recovery tape.

SEP

[Pratyush Paul_1]

Hi -

Yes you can use ignite to do this. Please try to create a tape with -i option with make_recovery.

Now try to boot thru the tape, and change the default disk, the OS would go and reside on the new disk.

But I feel the DD disks are a better choice.

Thanks

Pratyush

[Gerard Demers]

From the responses I still think DD is my only option here. Ignite install involves downtime on the system (as opposed to dd) and I don't see how lvmsplit will work. lvmsplit will rename the lvm's on the mirrored disk and once I split off lvol3b the other split information will not be stored in /.

[Steven E. Protter]

I think dd is the easiest and most effective option for you.

The disk will not be bootable in the current system because the hardware path will be different.

The mirror/split solution will create a bootable drive. After the split the second disk will be bootable, even though there will be logical volumes requireing rename.

Makeing an Ignite tape is not disruptive. We do it twice a week and it does not effect system performance or machine operation.

SEP