Alternate boot path

[GB Tek]

How should I setup HPUX so that in case the root drive fails and I'm not mirroring, I can boot to an alternate hard drive, boot HPUX and mount whatever database I need to. Would I install identical OS settings on each drive?

[Pete Randall]

Without mirroring, your best bet would probably be to do a complete install onto a spare drive then set that to be your alternate boot path with the setboot -a command.


Pete

[melvyn burnard]

ensure you have done your install to ht e"spare disc" and then at the BCH or ISL prompt, set the altpath flag, or use setboot on hte existing OS disc while UX is runing.
man setboot

[Helen French]

Yes. You need to install the same version of OS, same applications, softwares, patches, network configurations, system configs etc on the other disk. Infact you can schedule a time to sync the same disk with the original one. The alternate boot path can be set from either Console menu or from 'setboot' command.

Do a search on the forums and you will get lot of ideas about doing the root mirror without actual mirror-ux software.

[David_246 · Accepted solution]

Hi Greg,

Make a bootable Ignite backup and restore it onto you second drive (best is to temporary remove the primairy one).

/opt/ignite/bin/make_tape_recovery -AIv

Once done, reboot server; boot tape
Install onto second disk.

I would not set it as an Alternate !! What happens if you primairy disk fails during the night and your system will boot off the second disk. You find out it did 2 weeks later, now what will you do ??
If your first disk is having problems and your system goes down, you want to see your system being down if you don't have mirrored disks using LVM.

Good luck.


Regs David

[Tim Medford]

Hi Greg.

I do this all the time. I actually prefer this technique over running MirrorUX.

Please review the attached file. I've followed these instructions dozens of times for various servers, and I think I have everything covered. You can also setup a script which re-images the alternate drive every month or so depending on how often configurations change on the primary drive.

Give it a try and let me know how it works out.

Tim

[Pete Randall]

Rather than David's suggestion of not setting the alternate boot path, I would suggest turning autosearch off, but leave autoboot on. The boot process will attempt the primary path and on failure go to prompt. See man setboot in the Warnings section.

Pete

[GB Tek]

Thanks Tim.