Application CD: How to Share?

[joe_91]

Team:

This is the scenario.
Production: 6 servers(three of them have MC/SG version A.11.13 and three of them A.11.14
Testing: 2 servers one on A.11.09 and one on A.11.14
Development: 2 servers both on A11.13

We need a good approach to syncup everything with A.11.14. We have the Application CD which has A.11.14. How do we have a common approach to get this installed on all the boxes? Also any issues with the upgrade? should the older version be removed etc... Please advise.

Thanks
Joe.

[Martin Johnson]

You can have the CD mount on one system and access it via swinstall on the other systems by Source depot type: Network Directory/CDROM.

HTH
Marty

[Jeff Schussele · Accepted solution]

Hi Joe,

I'd set up a central depot server - if you don't already have one & swcopy the MC/SG 11.14 from the CD over to it then you can just swinstall from it now & any time in the future.
Don't have to worry about losing the CD.
HP recommends a "rolling" upgrade which essentially means fail all the pkg(s) off a system at a time & install there. Then reverse the process to get the other(s).
And no, you don't have to swremove the older version.

Rgds,
Jeff

[joe_91]

Hi:

Thanks. So I understand it would not be necessary to swremove any older versions when you install 11.14. Is that correct?

Thanks
Joe.

[ASO CENTRAL]

Correct for MC/SG. The newer version will update the old.

As far as sharing the CD, it is actually very easy. Simply mount it, for instance as /cdrom, then register the Application CD with swreg as in:

swreg /cdrom

And now every machine on your network can use the CD without NFS or swcopy or any other special setup. The SD utilities have their own network communication mechanism. Be sure to unregister the CD before you unmount it.

[joe_91]

Thanks. That solves it. But would someone mind explaining how SD has its own mechanism? for ex. i need not login to a box on my network to get the list of patches available on that box instead i can do..
swlist -l patch @ |grep . I mean how does this work w/o an id?

Cheers
Joe.

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi (again) Joe,

From the man 5 sd page

"SD uses a method based on credentials & passwords to authenticate the user and the SD command performing a given operation."

SD can also use ACL (Access Control Lists) in it's secure mode as well run_as_superuser & non-privileged modes. These perms can be set system-wide or down to the user-specific level.
These can be set in default config files or even as command line options.

But essentially by default only root has perms to do swinstalls, swremoves & swlists. And SD essentially "trusts" root users coming in from remote systems.

Hope that answers your question.

Rgds,
Jeff

[Sanjay_6]

Hi joe,

what you need to do is to do a rolling upgrade of the cluster.

http://docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/fsearch/framedisplay?top=/hpux/onlinedocs/B3936-90053/B3936-90053_top.html&con=/hpux/onlinedocs/B3936-90053/00/00/74-con.html&toc=/hpux/onlinedocs/B3936-90053/00/00/74-toc.html&searchterms=rolling%7cupgrade&queryid=20020912-102343

http://support2.itrc.hp.com/service/cki/docDisplay.do?docLocale=en_US&docId=200000062922323

http://docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/fsearch/framedisplay?top=/hpux/onlinedocs/B3936-90024/B3936-90024_top.html&con=/hpux/onlinedocs/B3936-90024/00/00/67-con.html&toc=/hpux/onlinedocs/B3936-90024/00/00/67-toc.html&searchterms=rolling%20upgrade&queryid=20020912-102719

Hope this helps.

Regds