General ignite-UX questions

[Seth Gustafsson]

Hello

I'm in the process of hopefully using ignite-UX to duplicate an installation of OS, App software, etc basically a fresh install of a new system which I will be repicating several times. I have a few questions that I can't seem to find the answers to.

1) Must the system hardware be absolutlely identical ? I migth have some issues with different hardware, more on the controller side FC or SCSI for example.
2) Are there any good docs on how to create a bootable CD or tape.
3) Docs on customization.

I have gone through HP docs but want to get some feedback from people who have really used it and can point out any issues.

Thanks for any help.

Seth

[Vincenzo Restuccia]

1) no
make_recovery -A -d /dev/.....(backup entire vg00)

[Cheryl Griffin]

1) Must the system hardware be absolutlely identical ? I migth have some issues with different hardware, more on the controller side FC or SCSI for example.
Your chances of a more successful make_recovery "clone" is to use systems with similar hardware. The logic being if a particular driver is needed, for instance for the FC controller, if you restore that to a system that does not use that particular controller (i.e., it needs a different driver, that driver is not included in your archive.
Do you follow?

2) Are there any good docs on how to create a bootable CD or tape. 3) Docs on customization.
Check out IUX Home - http://www.software.hp.com/products/IUX/

Also check out the documents installed with the product in /opt/ignite/share/doc.

The documents on both of these sites will explain.

An alternative to what you are doing is to create an Ignite server with depots containing the os, software and applications you want to use on the systems, then push the software to the clients. This give you more flexibility in that if a system did require a particular driver or patch bundle, you would have that loaded into the depot.

[Pedro Sousa]

You should have similar HW. At least the systems should belong to the same class.

To create your tape (/dev/rmt/0m - default) type:
make_recovery -AvCi -t "

[John Bolene]

Also the ignite manual is online at
http://www.docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90704/B2355-90704.html

I use make_recovery -vAC -d /dev/rmt/0m for my backup. I use this to clone a bunch of similar servers, all similar except for the system name, IP, and a few other files that I change after the server is ignited. It is easy for me to take a tape drive and recovery tape to the machine.

Each server should have similar hardware down to the scsi addresses of the hard drives, otherwise, you have to interrupt the restore and enter a bunch of file system information about where the files go, how large each volume group is, etc.

The make_net_recovery allows you to store an image on a server and use it to ignite other machines.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Seth:

As an aside, I would download the latest version of Ignite (3.2) and would start using 'make_tape_recovery' in lieu of 'make_recovery'. 'make_recovery' is being phased out in favor of the more robust 'make_tape_recovery'.

For vg00, I use the following:

# make_tape_recovery -x inc_entire=vg00 -I -v -a /dev/rmt/0mn

This accompishes the same thing as the older variation cited above.

For current Ignite software, do to:

http://www.software.hp.com/products/IUX/download.html

...JRF...

[marc seguin]

Of course, similar hardware leads to a more successful installation.
But you can try any combination. I personnally use an OS golden image done from a C3000 and instann it on B180 & B132 workstations.

If there is a problem with the drivers, you can solve it if you already know the missing drivers for the new machine. So you can add the specific drivers in the kernel of your "original" machine and then proceed with backup (make_tepae_recovery).
But, for non identical machines, it could preferable to use make_sys_image, which should handle the right drivers.

[boley janowski]

im sure im just repeating what every one has already said except on saturday i used a recovery tape from a k460 (dev) and upgraded a k580 from10.20 to 11.0 (production). And no problems at all!!

make_recovery in preview mode and then modified the /var/opt/ignite/recovery/arch.include and removed most all the /dev files from the arch.include. then ran the recovery in resume mode. The 580 had three additional HP-PB lan cards and an HSC card as well (not that it matters but more cpu's and memory as well) anyway I split the 10.20 vg00 mirrors to the external disks and then ran the make_recovery to the internal disk. once this was complete the k580 complained quite abit about the additional hardware. I loaded the needed device drivers and tweeked the kernal a little. Then I imported all the other vgXX's back in and insured all the links and permissions were correct. and then turned it over to the testers. only a few problems showed up like some over looked .profiles and a couple of printer queues needed to be tweeked as well. After all was said and done the migration went well. I hope this is what you were looking for, if you want any specifics on my plan, let me know. Good Luck!!

[magnus linner]

If you decide to use a tape to clone the system use make_tape_recovery instead of make_recovery. Make_tape_recovery is the newew tool.
If you clone to different hardware, make sure to set the flag "Cloning to different HW?" to TRUE under the tab Basic->Additional.
This will force Ignite to generate a new kernel