Can I preserve my users data in vg00 ?

[Haitham Hamad]

I have a 10.2 HP OS on a 9G disk in addition to 2 users data filesystem. I am upgrading my os to 11.0 on a 4G disk and removing the first OS from the 9G.
I am trying to avoid bringing my users data from backup. Normally, I vgexport my other volume groups and import them back after my installation (done that for other servers with no users data on vg00). I don't imagine I can vgexport my vg00 since all filesystems has to be umounted and that's not possible when the system is running. Since I have a mirror of vg00, I thought of breaking the mirror and put the mirror disk on a new volume group. Is this a viable solution and if so how do I go about it? TIA Haitham

[Thierry Poels_1 · Accepted solution]

Hi,
go for the "preview" option of vgexport: create a mapfile without distroying the Volume Group.

vgexport -p -m -v vg00.map /dev/vg00
then put vg00.map on a safe place :)

good luck,
Thierry.

[Vincenzo Restuccia]

You can remove all patchs of 10.2 run swinstall with CD 11.00 and select upgrade OS,you preserve all data of vg00.

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

make an ignite backup with the -Av option in anycase, but the vgexport/vgimport should work just fine.

make_recovery -Av -d /dev/rmt/0m
(ioscan -fnkCtape)

if no space on tape
make_net_recovery -s igniteserver -x inc_entire=vg00

Get ignite from software.hp.com/products/IUX/

Later,
Bill

[Haitham Hamad]

I was not able to execute the vgexport successfully, it says volume group is still active. I don't think vg00 can be deactivated because of the running system processes!!!!

[Wieslaw Krajewski]

Hi,

I am not sure if you still need this information, but of course you can do vgexport/vgimport on vg00. Just must start in the maintenance mode. To do this:

reboot your system
stop automatic start
answer y to interact with ISL
having prompt ISL> issue: hpux -lm
after a short while you'll be in the maintenance mode,
with vg00 in non active state. Then you can vgexport vg00 and then vgimport.

[Haitham Hamad]

Thank you very much. This will save me at least 4 hours of restoring data.

[Mark Mitchell]

The VGexport didn't work because the man page given to you here is wrong. The -m "map file" option needs to be in front of the name.
vgexport -p -v -m mapfile.map -s /dev/vgXX

[Haitham Hamad]

You are right about the flags, I normally use

vgexport -p -v -s -m /tmp/vg01.map /dev/vg01

[Zoeckler]

Hello,
I'm rather interested in this thread. I have a machine with 10.20 and 11.0 installed.
If I do a
vgexport -m test.map -s -p -v vg00
I get the ascii map file with some mapping between numerical ids and names of the logical volumes.

When I boot the other system I can import the volumegroup with the test.map, without really exporting it. Things seem to work fine. If I'm not interested in the exact mapping of the names I think without map it will be fine, too.

The idea is to access a volumegroup from both systems without exporting/importing them on every reboot. Does this work or am I on the way of messing things up.

Do you know wether vgexport does anything more to the physical data in the volumegroup. I would expect that after a shutdown of the system the data in the volumegroup should all be written to disk and the volumegroup can be safely used from the second operating system.

Any experiences with this.

Thanks in advance.