HP-UX Device IDs Feature

[Duncan Edmonstone]

Hi all,

I've noticed this text in a bunch of patches that were all released around November last year:

This product update is a member of a set needed to enable the optional HP-UX Device IDs feature. Upon installation, the HP-UX Device IDs bundle (DevIDs11i) will install the full set of product updates (including this one) necessary to enable the Device IDs feature.

This patch text is found in the following patches:

PHCO_27961
PHCO_27960
PHCO_27959
PHCO_27958
PHCO_27957

Anyone know what this device IDs feature actually is and what it does? I couldn't locate the actual bundle 'DevIDs11i' anywhere.

Cheers

Duncan

[Bill Hassell]

This is an early set of patches (11.0 and 11i) to add a field to mnttab for NFS and autofs. This field keeps a direct pointer to the server and filesystem in order to avoid lengthy timeouts due to dead servers. Currently, when a mountpoint needs to be removed, the entire mount table is searched and this can lead to terrible delays on a production server if one of more of the NFS/autofs locations is bad.

11.0
PHCO_28141
PHNE_27217
PHCO_27731
PHCO_27516
PHCO_27515
PHCO_27514
PHCO_27508

[Duncan Edmonstone]

Thanks Bill,

But I still don't understand what this additional bundle is (DevIDs11i)... does it simply enable the functionality you describe?

Thanks

Duncan

[Duncan Edmonstone]

Just wanted to ping this one back up to the top!

thx

Duncan

[Brian Hackley · Accepted solution]

Duncan,

The Device ID Enhancement patch bundle is not yet officially released to http://software.hp.com . It is expected to be posted in February, with DevIDs11 for HPUX 11.0 and DevIDs11i for HPUX 11.11. There are other patches involved in the patch bundle. I don't have the list, but the release notes for the DevIDs11/11i bundle will contain the appropriate documentation.

Here is some more information to augment what Bill already posted:


This [patch bundle installation] method was chosen so that the new behavior is only enabled deliberately. To disable the functionality (once enabled), the administrator must swremove the product.

This bundle contains patches for the following components: mount, umount, mountall, umountall, fsclean, FS kernel, quota (11.11 only), AutoFS, and libc.

If the customer has more recent patches for any of the subsystems, this bundle WILL NOT overwrite them - the more current patches will remain installed.


Duncan, if you need to install this bundle sooner than "February", please contact HP Customer Support by logging a software call for the HPUX Network NFS subsystem. We are able to provide you with an an "early" copy of what should be the same bits that are being posted in February.

Hope this helps,

-> Brian Hackley

[Duncan Edmonstone]

Brian that's spot on!

Now if I am understanding you correctly, installing the listed patches makes the functionality Bill describes available, but doesn't actually 'enable' it - but installing the DevIDs11i bundle after installing the patches will enable it.

The functionality Bill described may certainly be of interest to me... I am currently working on a ServiceGuard for SAP environment where NFS and AutoFS is prevalent... however I don't need an early copy... I'm happy to wait for the official release.

Thanks very much guys... you've satisfied my curiosity! I hate not knowing what a new feature is for!

Duncan