Use mirrored disk to install OS

[Ivan Rodriguez Sanchez]

Hi all,

I have to install HPUX 11.31 on 2 BL870c servers, each server has 2 internal disks.
I configured the RAID 1 from the EFI shell with 'drvcfg -s' in both servers. Everything OK until now.
I installed HPUX from the DVD in one of the servers (server A). At this point, I have 2 disks with HPUX installed (the internal disks of the server A). So, I wanted to use one of these disk as the system disk of the other server (server B), and this way, avoid installing HPUX from the DVD again.
So at this point each server has one disk with the OS installed, the server A has the disk in slot1 with the OS installed, and the server B the disk in slot 2.
I tried to boot the servers, with the disk with the OS connected, and the other ones (the empty disks) out. Both servers booted. Then I shutdowned both servers, connected the empty disks, and boot. I executed 'drvcfg -s' from the EFI shell to reconfigure the raid in both servers, but I could only see one of the disks in each server (the empty disks), the other disks (the ones with the OS) appeared as missing. I could only reconfigure the mirror loosing all the data in the disks, so finally I had to installed HPUX in both servers with the DVD.
Anyone knows how to reconfigure the mirror to avoid to install the OS again from the media? Maybe sasmgr??
In this case I had only 2 servers, but I can't imagine all the time I would have wasted with 20 servers.

Thanks a lot!!

[likid0]

You can use ignite-ux:

http://docs.hp.com/en/5992-3336/index.html

You can also use DrD:

http://docs.hp.com/en/5992-5856/index.html

Hope it helps

[Ivan Rodriguez Sanchez]

Those are another possibilities...but I would like to know how to install the OS using the HW mirror of the servers, I think this is the quickest way to make a massive installation.

[likid0]

Hy Ivan,

I would say it's not the quickest way, I deploy loads of new systems with ignite and golden images and it's really quick and simple way to clone loads of servers, using ignite you don't have to physically move disks around.And if you wan't good backups of your hp-ux systems you need to install a ignite infrastructure anyway

And then if you use 11.31 with the sept 2008 relase, you have Drd that is another really quick way to install if using san disks, here you have a link:

http://docs.hp.com/en/5992-5883/5992-5883.pdf

with examples of cloning blades with drd