help to start the process

[hpuxhelp]

I have installed the ignite software on the server, I'd like to have some help on starting this whole process. This is new for me so please have patient...thanks

[Patrick Wallek]

What is it you want to do?

If you want to create a Ignite/UX TAPE of your entire vg00, then the following command will do what you want:

# /opt/ignite/bin/make_tape_recovery -a /dev/rmt/?mn -I -v -x inc_entire=vg00

You should probably check out the documentation in Ignite/UX at http://software.hp.com/products/IUX/docs.html

The Administration Guide there is good to read.

Also check out the documents in /opt/ignite/share/doc directory.

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi,

If your idea is to setup an ignite server and do net recovery images, then simply run

/opt/ignite/bin/ignite&

This will pop up the ignite GUI and it will take you through the tutorial and the setup. You can use it to do builds and standardize your environment more efficiently.

It is very easy.

If you want to create make_tape_recovery tapes, just follow Patrick's instructions.

-Sri

[hpuxhelp]

The goal of my project is to be able to use the ignite server to secure the same image on vg00 ( including the configuration on all sizes) and in addition, we want to be able to boot to the ignite server in case of system crash and hardware replacement?

... is there a way to do so?
how many ways that one can use the ignite software to recover the system?

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi,

I suggest you to take a look at Ignite's FAQs.

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

-Sri

[Brian M Rawlings]

If you're not sure what ignite is all about or why you would use it, here's the buzz, in a nutshell:

You install it on every HP server (and possibly workstations) that are important (generally all of them). You make regular bootable tape images of each system's root volume (vg00), on a set of three or four tapes that you rotate through on a weekly (or whatever) basis.

You also make one after every major system change (patching, config changes, new I/O cards, etc), and set it aside (not in the rotation pool). You keep these tape (all of them) in a very safe place, they are your lifeboat. Sane people also send a tape off-site for protection against site-wide disaster.

Like any insurance, you hope never to need these tapes, but like any insurance, you're nuts if you don't have it/them.

If unspecified bad happens to a server, you repair/replace/fix it so that it will boot, and has functional boot disks, then you boot the latest ignite (make_tape_recovery) tape. With a minimum of fuss, it loads your boot disks back up with everything they had, generally everything you need to do recoveries from your other backup solution, to get the server back up, fully patched and properly configured, as quickly as it is possible to do.

Without an ignite tape (or ignite depot out on the network somewhere), this process takes many hours or days of intense and stultifyingly boring activity that you would ever go a long way to avoid. With this tape, life is good, your job is secure, you get a great raise, and chicks dig you (to quote Bill Murray).

All of this general goodness is also possible with make_net_recovery, which does essentially the same thing but makes "golden image" depots out on a server somewhere instead of on tape, and you have to boot over the network, or you boot from a little "boot tape" that makes your box smart enough to reach over the network for its vg00 data.

The make_net_recovery scenario adds the ability to monitor your servers and fire off a new golden image if anything significant changes on one, reducing the manual activities you have to remember as you do stuff. And, of course, you don't have to go around changing tapes all the time, and keeping track of tapes, etc. Both ways work, both have different aggravation points and strengths.

Ignite has some other useful stuff, like being able to resize all the imprudently sized default vg00 file systems that HP supplies by default on new servers... but make_tape_recovery and make_net_recovery are the two biggies for sysadmins everywhere. If I've left anything out, no doubt somebody will add it in a few minutes.

Good Luck with this, it is a good friend to have.

--bmr