DVD/DAT removal/addition between vPar's

[Gunther Schulze]

I have a cell based system with one nPar. Within this nPar I have 2 vPars. Currently, one vPar owns a DVD and DAT (daisychained). How can I remove the DVD/DAT from one vPar and add it to the other without bringing the vPar's down?

[Jeff Schussele · Accepted solution]

Hi Gunther,

Sorry - it can't be done.
This is one of the fundamental weaknesses of the vPar environment.
IF you need a tape drive to create M-T-R tapes you'll have to connect one to an external SCSI card that resides in that vPar definition.
BUT the fundamental problem with that is you can't really "boot" the tape because the vPar that's *not* in control of the internal drives can never get to a BCH prompt without taking all vPars down.
What we do is backup the secondary - and even the primary - vPars with make_net_recovery archives.
I's also highly recommended to backup the vPar db that resides in /stand to another system so that if it gets corrupted it can be easily restored via ftp or scp or whatever.

Rgds,
Jeff

[D Block 2]

remove the io path from on vpar, makes it available for any vpar..

caution here: before you do anything.. you might want to plan some downtime for both sytems..

do a ignite for the one vPar.. then verify of course that you can do an Ignite of this one system, if need be..

ok, very important.. create a Make-Net-recovery for both vpars onto a different system having the net-recovery server.. just in case you need to recover either vPar from the Net-Recovery server...

-- ok given your comfort level now --

how about this..


list the ioscan of each vpar(s)

shutdown the vPar that has the io devices scsi daisy-chained..

remove the devices form the vPar-node:
run the vparmodify from the live vpar that is running:

vparstatus -A

vparmodify -p vparONE -d io:...

vparstatus -A


then add the io devices to the live vpar:

vparmodify -p vparTWO -a io:..

vparstatus -A

maybe at this time, you can run a separte make-TAPE-recovery before bringing up the down vpar.. just a thought...

-- at this point you should be able to bring up the down-vpar and it doesn't have any DVD/DAT devices..

but, wait a minute, you might have to load the SCSI driver on the 2n'd vpar that you want to add the DVD/DAT scsi units...

so, lsdev on both, then configure the scsi drivers on the system you wanted to add the devices...

best of luck..

as an option, you just might want to get a separate scsi-card and add this one to the 2nd' vpar... then add the scsi drivers to the kernel, then simply hand connect the cable to the dvd/ or dat/ unit which is daisy chained... I kind of like this option myself...










vparmodify -d io:...