How to Copy one system to another?

[Thomas F. Blich]

We have a T600 10.20 box that is running an application and databases. We want to copy these applications to another box disaster recovery style.

I was thinking I could do the following:

On new box:

cold install minimum HP-UX 10.20 on new box
create file systems
Restore old files from tape except for:

/stand/vmunix
/dev
/etc/lvmtab

Change hostnames, ip addresses to reflect new box
Change Internal application hostnames, IP addresses.

Regen kernel
reboot

Before I start doing this, is there anything I am missing?

Thanks,
Tom

[Sandip Ghosh]

If both the boxes are same type you can take an ignite backup and restore it on other interactively, means during the installation provide the hostname , ip address, default gateway, root disk name etc.'

Sandip

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi:

You are doing this the hard way. You really need to check out a free HP product called Ignite-UX. Simply do a search on Ignite and you will find tons of material. Basically you make a recovery tape and then boot from that and all of your system with latest patches is back on your recovery box. It is the weapon of choice for this.

[Patrick Wallek]

How is your application and data layed out on the system? Do you have anything in VG00 except the OS?

What is it your test box? If it is another T, then use Ignite/UX to backup your VG00 and then use that tape to reinstall on the test box. If it is not a T, then I'd install the OS, and make it look as close as you can to the T. I would not, however, restore any files from VG00. You can use Ignite's print_manifest program to print out information about the system. Or you could use cfg2html, nickel, sysinfo or other similar programs to get config information for your T.

Once you have the OS loaded, restore your data and application and see what happens.

[Thomas F. Blich]

The destination box is a K460.

[pap]

Hi you can use COPYUTIL utility from offline diagnostics enviroment of HP.
You have to go to the ISL prompt for that.

I will create the exact image of your current system on a tape. Then you can restore it.
Read the supportPlus manual for more information.

Thanks,

-Piyush.

[Thomas F. Blich]

I don't want to have to rebuild the OS all over again. Does anybody know which directories at a minimum should be avoided? I don't want to resinstall all the patches.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

This is difficult because some of the patches are kernel patches. Because your platforms are so different, let me give you a Plan B.

You already seem to have decided to load a base OS on your target platform. Why not have a depot on your source machine with all the patches / applications in it. You backup this depot regularly. At disaster recovery, you restore this depot to your target machine. You then use swinstall to install everything in the depot.

[Thomas F. Blich]

How would I create this depot from the existing machine?

[Jeffrey Davis_1]

Hi. As mentioned already, since your two machines are different hardware you probably shouldn't do a full ignite image install. Since, it will autodetect that the new machine does not have the same hardware config as the original and, in my experience, will not allow you to proceed with the install.
As far as patches go, if you have them, or a majority of them, in a patch.depot, you can simply copy the depot, or use ignite to install from the depot, after you get a base os installed on the new machine.
Since installing the OS from scratch isn't that bad, and will save time as compared to trying to fudge an image from the old machine, you might want to simply install from scratch. Besides the fact that installing from scratch will prevent any eroneous hardware config files/settings on the new machine.
Once you get a base OS, kernel, and patch level set, then of course you will need to copy/restore your data and applications. This posses a potential problem depending upon how you back-up your data. If it is backed up via fbackup or similar this shouldn't be too bad. But your data is backed up via omniback or other app., the app. will have to be re-installed since it is not in the IPD anymore. In this case you could, perhaps, tar up the binaries, or simply re-install the product.
Maybe someone else has info on recovering between two different machines.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi:

You do a swlist on your source machine to list all the packages/patches. You then copy each of these from the original CD media or from downloaded files to your depot. The swcopy command can be used or you can do everything (including making this depot - e.g. /swdepot) from SAM. The idea is that you will be very disciplined to always copy new patches/application to this depot and then install on your source machine from this depot. That way the depot is always up to date.