HP-UX vs AIX vs Solaris

[Jim Johnson_8]

***** Warning Long Post *****

I'm interested to hear from Unix Gurus, who are just as comfortable with AIX or Solaris as they are with HP, and have the experience to address each question (there is even one question for you Linux/Windows fans).

I'm already familiar with these two wonderful sites, so these questions go beyond what they cover:
http://www.unixporting.com/quickguide.html
http://www.unixguide.net/unixguide.shtml

1) Does AIX/Solaris have a utility like Ignite to make a backup image of root? Is it free? Can you restore from tape as well as the network? If the first answer was no, then how do you recover the OS without reloading?

2) Does AIX/Solaris have the same features as OnlineJFS? Is it part of the OS, or an additional purchased product? Or does everybody just use Veritas for LVM?

3) Does AIX/Solaris have a utility like Mirror/UX? Is it part of the OS, or an additional purchased product?

4) Does AIX/Solaris have a product like MC/ServiceGuard? Is it part of the OS, or an additional purchased product?

5) Does AIX/Solaris/Linux/Windows have any in house or 3rd party utility like PRM/WLM? Wouldn't it be great to make sure that the Windows OS is always allocated at least 20% cpu, so that ill-behaved programs don't max out the CPU causing windows to basically hang (assuming you use Windows at all in your environment)! :)

6) Have AIX/SOlaris made any commands multi-threaded like MtIOscan?

7) Do AIX/Solaris servers have PDC/Firmware versions? Can the version be checked from command line (like using STM)? Can they be upgraded with a simple patch like HP?

8) Do AIX/Solaris servers have anything like HP's iLO/GSP/MP?

9) Any good documentation out there to make AIX/Solaris a "Bastion Host" like you can with HP-UX?

10) I would imagine AIX/Solaris having something similar to Online Diagnostics, but what about EMS & ODE? Does it update the bootlif like ODE does (something to be aware of when mirroring root)? Is there something similar to monconfig?

11) Does AIX/Solaris have a good place to order media, like SUM? How often do patch CD's come out, if they even patch the same way?

12) Does AIX/Solaris have a good utility for setting up network based printers (with proper drivers) like HP's JetDirect Printer Installer (for Unix)?

13) What is the oldest,low-end unsupported/supported server that can run the latest (64-bit) OS? For example, for HP I would say you can run HP-UX 11i on a unsupported D370 or a supported D390/R390 (although I think these get obsoleted this year). Maybe a D270/D280 or an old A-class can run HP-UX 11i, I'm not sure.

14) Does AIX/Solaris have anything similar to:
lifcp
lifls
setboot
mkboot

15) I run this command all the time, what is the equivalent:
ioscan -fnC disk (or ioscan -fnkC disk)

16) Where are the equivalent of these files:
/etc/resolv.conf
/etc/shutdownlog
/var/adm/syslog/syslog.log (what if syslog.conf is nothing but comments)

17) Do you really have to have some sort of media to boot to single use mode on AIX/Solaris?

18) Here I would categorize as some of the most important websites for HP-UX administrators. What are some of the equivalents for AIX/Solaris, or maybe I have missed some good HP links you wish to list.
http://forums.itrc.hp.com
http://itrc.hp.com
http://esca.americas.hp.com
http://docs.hp.com
http://software.hp.com
http://education.itresourcecenter.hp.com
http://licensing.hp.com
http://partner.americas.hp.com
http://openview.hp.com
http://partsurfer.hp.com
http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/prodserv/servers.html

[Patrick Wallek]

These are from what I remember of AIX and Solaris:

1) AIX has mksysb to make a bootable tape. I don't remember what all it includes.

Solaris has jumpstart to install new machines over the network, but it doesn't really back things up. If you are using basic disk slices in Solaris it is very easy to do a 'dd' from one disk to another to make a backup boot disk.

2) AIX has the ability to do online extending of filesystems as part of the OS I believe. But not online shrinking of filesystem.

Solaris uses basic disk slices by default (at least they used to). To get any more functionality you must use some sort of volume manager like Veritas. There used to be a lite version of VxVM included with Solaris I think, but to get full fledged functionality you had to buy the full version.

3) AIX - I don't know.

Solaris - See #2 above.

4) AIX - HACMP or Veritas Cluster server. I think both must be purchased.

Solaris - Veritas Cluster server. Must be purchased.

5) AIX has some similar features though I can't recall what they are called at the moment.

Solaris - I don't know.

6-10) Don't know

11) AIX - Don't know.

Solaris - You can download patch bundles online. http://www.sun.com/download/index.jsp

12) You should be able to get jetadmin for AIX and Solaris.

13-15) Don't know.

16) AIX - still /etc/resolv.conf. I don't think there is any equivalent to shutdownlog. /var/adm/messages

Solaris - still /etc/resolv.conf. I don't think there is any equivalent to shutdownlog. /var/adm/messages, I believe. Also dmesg.

17) AIX - Don't know.

Solaris - When at the OK prompt you can do a 'boot -s' to get to single-user mode.

18) AIX - don't really know of any.
Solaris - http://sunsolve.sun.com
http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/

[Geoff Wild]

Adding to Patrick's answer:

#3 AIX - yes - built in.


This might answer more:

Rosetta Stone
http://bhami.com/rosetta.html

Other links:

http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/show.pl?target=patches/patch-access

http://ftp.univie.ac.at/aix/
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/aix-faq/
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/


Rgds...Geoff

[dirk dierickx · Accepted solution]

i'm not so up to date on my AIX, we have very old box running it (version 4.something) nobody ever looks at it, but from what i've seen i don't like it much anyway.

1. solaris has jumpstart for that purpose, it is very easy and simple and can be made to do about anything from recovery to installation. it's also free

2. onlinejfs isn't free on hpux as far as i know. on solaris <10 you can use disksuite, which is _not_ the same thing but will do the job in most cases. solaris 10 promises to bring zfs which is a 'revolutinary' fs and does the same as jfs/vxvm/fs. otherwise use veritas software for advanced filesystem usage, as a bonus the commands are the same on both os's

3. disksuite can mirror disks (it's free), more features available in veritas vxvm

4. suncluster, or again veritas cluster server. none of them are free but neither are they on hpux

5. windows2003 advanced or something like that can do it, on linux there are kernel patches available (but not included in any distro just yet), solaris has the something similar but i forgot how it is called. not sure if you can achive this with 'zones' on solaris 9

6. solaris contains some java utilities, i'm sure these are multithreaded. but there is not much advantage to making os commands MT. and you can always run multiple commands in paralel :-/

7. sun provides patches, which require reboots to patch firmwares.

8. on recent machines they have a Lights Out capabilities in the service processor, which allows you to manage the machine even when it is powered off (as long as there is power going to the machine, and the service processor has its own network connection)

9. http://www.cisecurity.org/bench_solaris.html and http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/content/submitted/Solaris_build_document.pdf

10. monitoring the hardware in solaris is rather limited, this is one are where hp is much better in. there are some commands available, but they don't show you everything. the machines have a decent POST but ofcourse this requires your machine to reboot. when in trouble, the sun engineers will mostly send you specific tools that you need to run so they get a better view of the system status

11. solaris patch management is 10x easier, the hp way is just horrible. also 90% of the patches on solaris can be installed online. The mechanism is simple and tools are available to automate the whole thing for you. it is possible to get 3 monthly patch cd's, the patches get installed by running one command.

12. jetdirect is available on solaris, use it only for hp printers, all other printers can be controlled from solaris directly.

13. a sun ultra 5.

14/15/16. http://bhami.com/rosetta.html

17. sure, your system needs a hard disk ;)
seriously, booting single user on solaris is as easy as a 'boot -s' on the boot prompt. (you can boot from cd as well)

18. newsgroups are your friend.

[Ranjith_5]

Hi ,

After seeing your question I feel that I am appearing an interview. So many doubts at the same time..Any ways I will try to answer for with the limited free time I have.

1) About similar product like ignite.Yes it is available. It is #mksysb
The command line can be as follows.

#mksysb -i /dev/rmt0

See here man page and other reference.

i)

http://publib16.boulder.ibm.com/pseries/en_US/cmds/aixcmds3/mksysb.htm

ii).

http://publib16.boulder.ibm.com/pseries/en_US/aixins/insgdrf/nim_basic_mksysb_image.htm

2.) There are options for extending LVs.

use extendlv

Docs are here

http://www.mager.org/aix/lvm.pdf


3.) Mirroring is available in AIX

4.)IBM Cluster management is called HACMP.

See the certification study guide.

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246375.html?Open


You can get all the required official study guides from

www.redbooks.ibm.com

Visit this and have a search.



18.)

Online Manual

Official website:-

www.redbooks.ibm.com

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/ds_form?lang=en_US&viewset=AIX&config=/usr/share/man/info/en_US/a_doc_lib/data/base.cfg


RS6000 Tech.Support.

http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/support/rs6000/


FAQ.

http://www.emerson.emory.edu/services/aix-faq/



Hope this helps u.
Regards,
Syam

[Alzhy]

Responses for SOLARIS:

1) Does AIX/Solaris have a utility like Ignite to make a backup image of root? Is it free? Can you restore from tape as well as the network? If the first answer was no, then how do you recover the OS without reloading?

See flarcreate

Solaris has a concept called Flash Archives which is similar to Ignite-Archives.. only far more flexible.

2) Does AIX/Solaris have the same features as OnlineJFS? Is it part of the OS, or an additional purchased product? Or does everybody just use Veritas for LVM?

OnlineJFS is essentially a Veritas Product - it is Vertitas Filesystem and is available for most UNIX flavours.

Sun's upcoming ZFS replaces the native UFS product and will reputedly be endian-neutral as well as be a volume management system as well.


3) Does AIX/Solaris have a utility like Mirror/UX? Is it part of the OS, or an additional purchased product?

Solaris has a free-bundled Disksuite (now called Solaris Volume Manager). Solaris 10 still offers it but will be replaced at some point by ZFS - which is a filesystem/volmgr.

4) Does AIX/Solaris have a product like MC/ServiceGuard? Is it part of the OS, or an additional purchased product?

Solaris has Sun Cluster - which is probably the Veritas Cluster product.

5) Does AIX/Solaris/Linux/Windows have any in house or 3rd party utility like PRM/WLM? Wouldn't it be great to make sure that the Windows OS is always allocated at least 20% cpu, so that ill-behaved programs don't max out the CPU causing windows to basically hang (assuming you use Windows at all in your environment)! :)

Solaris has SRM -- Solaris Resource Manager - which is the predecessor to Solaris Containers. Works pretty much like WLM/PRM of HP-UX.

6) Have AIX/SOlaris made any commands multi-threaded like MtIOscan?

Probably.

7) Do AIX/Solaris servers have PDC/Firmware versions? Can the version be checked from command line (like using STM)? Can they be upgraded with a simple patch like HP?

/usr/platform/`uname -i`/sbin/prtdiag -v
prtconf -v

8) Do AIX/Solaris servers have anything like HP's iLO/GSP/MP?

Yes.

9) Any good documentation out there to make AIX/Solaris a "Bastion Host" like you can with HP-UX?

There are what's called "Blueprints" offered by Sun. Go to Sun and search for the Blueprint Archives.


10) I would imagine AIX/Solaris having something similar to Online Diagnostics, but what about EMS & ODE? Does it update the bootlif like ODE does (something to be aware of when mirroring root)? Is there something similar to monconfig?

Yes there is. Ijust cannot recall what its called.

11) Does AIX/Solaris have a good place to order media, like SUM? How often do patch CD's come out, if they even patch the same way?

Sun offers everything (even the OS) available for download. Quarterly releases for what's equivalent to the OEURs of HP-UX. Patches are I think weekly (the Recommended bundles).


12) Does AIX/Solaris have a good utility for setting up network based printers (with proper drivers) like HP's JetDirect Printer Installer (for Unix)?

Yes - and it is dependent onthe printer. For HP printers - it uses versions of Jetdirect software for Solaris.

13) What is the oldest,low-end unsupported/supported server that can run the latest (64-bit) OS? For example, for HP I would say you can run HP-UX 11i on a unsupported D370 or a supported D390/R390 (although I think these get obsoleted this year). Maybe a D270/D280 or an old A-class can run HP-UX 11i, I'm not sure.

A free to 100$ Sun Ultra 2 (with 167/300Mhz Sparc-II CPU) can be forced to run at 64-bit Solaris 9.

14) Does AIX/Solaris have anything similar to:
lifcp
lifls
setboot
mkboot

installboot.


15) I run this command all the time, what is the equivalent:
ioscan -fnC disk (or ioscan -fnkC disk)

devfsadm -C disk (For Solaris 7 and later)
drvconfig;disks;devlinks (for older versions)

16) Where are the equivalent of these files:
/etc/resolv.conf
/etc/shutdownlog
/var/adm/syslog/syslog.log (what if syslog.conf is nothing but comments)

Same.. slight changes in locations.

17) Do you really have to have some sort of media to boot to single use mode on AIX/Solaris?

No. If you have a "JumpStart Server". For X86/X86-64 Sun Systems - you can use USB media.


18) Here I would categorize as some of the most important websites for HP-UX administrators. What are some of the equivalents for AIX/Solaris, or maybe I have missed some good HP links you wish to list.

www.sunmanagers.org

[Todd Stewart_1]

1) AIX has NIM which is the equivalent to Ignite for HP-UX and Jumpstart for Solaris. NIM is free with AIX

[Rashid Hamid]

Hi

I have a little bit experience working in AIX but not Solaris. May be I can answer few questions....
1)AIX used mksysb command to backup rootvg. Its free comes together from OS. Yes you can restore from the tape as well as network.

2)Yes, AIX has feature similar to Online jfS in HPUX. The only different is AIX online JFS is preinstalled from os. You can increase any file system on fly including / directory.

3) AIX come together with mirroring. standard package.

15) in AIX, lsdev command

16) similar path

17) Can used OS Cd or to go to single user mode

[Florian Heigl (new acc)]

hey, I'll try :)

1)
solaris: flash since 9.x - by now even supports wan installs through https
aix: nim/mksysb
2)
aix: more features - 5.3 can reduce filesystems too, support has matured a lot
solaris: not sure filesystem-wise
3)
solaris: solstice disksuite (free, annoying)
aix: everything included in base os, works fine.
4)
solaris: SunCluster (extra)
aix: HACMP (extra)
5)
solaris: ressource manager (iirc in the base os)
aix: wlm (included, great)
6)
unknown, sorry
7)
solaris: don't know.. :)
aix: checkable at runtime, updateable from os loader ('SMS') or from os. service processor and system firmware are tied together.
8) sure ;)
aix: HMC for partitioned system is a annoying beast.
9) aix: there is one document which goes to almost the same level, it does iirc not include software selection, but it is reasonable
solaris: many, even by sun
10: aix: ode - yes 'disk based diagnostics'
rest - unknown
11) aix: ibm is currently (I read about that 1 month ago) at a complete loss of overview, shipping different levels of 5.3 cds etc., hp does handle this a lot better
we haven't yet even received 5.3 cds :)
patch management is ok, with a good SUM-lookalike.
solaris: sun appears to be ok.
patch management is ok.
12: aix: yes
solaris - never printed anything on solaris ;)
13: IBM did a great shift: all 32-bit systems got unsupported with AIX 5.2, OTOH all current 'CHRP' systems are supported. 5.3 will run on a '96 H50, for example.
Solaris: Solaris 10 is plays a similar role, everything below sun4u cpu types got unsupported. oldest system supported: Sun Ultra 1
14)
aix: bosboot -a (that's all)
solaris: I can't remember right now
15)
aix: cfgmgr && lsdev -Ccadapter # leaving out the first equals -k
solaris:
devfsadm / prtconf
16)
aix: errpt -a , alot -f conslog
solaris: /var/log/syslog, iirc, reboots go to lastlog, if that is enough.
17)aix: yes, os install cd is abused for that, and You would spend a few months of hacking FORTH to get there without it.
Catch: the CD and installed OS should be the same OS level for some actions.
Like reloading a not-bootable mksysb tape. Great, huh?
solaris: You can use the CD, and You might want to for forensic reasons. The environment almost equals a full os, so this is much better than what HP-UX has by default (think 'using 12MB Ramdisk on a 64GB SD')

18)
aix:
www.rootvg.net
solaris:
www.cuddletech.com
www.sunhelp.org

[Jim Johnson_8]

Thanks for the great responses so far. I have a few additional questions and overall comments.

Questions
19) Does AIX/Solaris have a large "Enterprise" software line like OpenView? I know Glance can run on several OS's, but do AIX or Solaris have their own in house comparable product? What about something similar to NNM or Operations?

20) How can you tell the server platform you are running on (HP-UX "model" command)?

Comments
1-4 Were tackled very well
5 I would like to know more about resource managers on Linux/Windows, but that is probably out of scope for this thread.
6 Probably doesn't matter so much is what I got out of it.
7 Florian, how do you check it (on AIX)?
8 answered
9 Florian, do you happen to have the URL?
10 This seems to be a weaker topic with AIX/Solaris. Anybody have more info about AIX, or have the tool name under Solaris?
11-13 answered
14 I take it bosboot -a and installboot are equivalent to mkboot. Can I run these commands in a production environment or would that hose things up? I'm looking for the equivalent of setboot (by itself).
What about lifcp/lifls or is that functionality also contained in bosboot/installboot?
15 Thanks for the rosetta link! Good stuff.
16 I do have access to an AIX box and it does not have a /var/adm/messages or /var/adm/syslog file/directory. It is AIX 5.1. The syslog.conf file is only comments. My only guess is that nothing is being logged??? Florian, errpt does work, the command alot -f conslog does not work (alot not found).
17 I think this was answered for AIX. So you have to have the OS install CD to reset the root password?
18 There was some great links listed. AIX had a FAQ (haven't had time to trudge through yet), and here is one I found for Solaris:
circa 2002
http://www.science.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html
newer, but for intel
http://www.sun.drydog.com/faq/

A forum for Solaris was listed, and a 3rd party forum was listed for AIX. Does IBM have their own sponsored forum for AIX?

Is there a similar link for AIX/Solaris as my esca, licensing, partner links?

[steven Burgess_2]

Hi

Well I have just moved from hpux (5 years) to a company who only run AIX and linux.

Website and newsgroup

rootvg.net
comp.unix.aix

For error logs use

errpt

to get a more descriptive error

errpt -aj

As mentioned, AIX has NIM to install and recover from. You do all your software updates from the NIM server also, your machines can perform the makesysb to the NIM server and recover from it. I have just built one this week and found it as simple and more straightforward that jumpstart or ignite


Yes you can run bosboot commands in a production to gather information as far as boot disk etc. Be careful though as there are a few destructive commands in there

Haven't had a go at HACMP yet, will no doubt be doing soon

Have also built a number of LPAR's this week which are similar to NPAR/VPAR in HPUX

With AIX you can also create virtual I/O servers where all machine's within the configuration can share tape devices and network cards etc

With the P5 processor the system also lets you creat a DLPAR where you can slice a processor into 10 virtual processors which you can then allocate to LPARS on a most needed basis. Pretty impressive if you ask me

As far as diagnostics AIX has a tool called diag which allows you to find out about as much information as you will probably ever need. You also have an option to boot from a diagnostic disk to perform more investigation

Firmware is classed as microcode

The server also has a service procressor similar to a gsp

LVM is very intuitive

AIX also has smitty which as well as doing most things for you, it will create a script and logfile so you can look back and see exactly whats been done

This is as much as I have learnt in the last 3 weeks and enjoying it.....

HTH

Steve

[Steven E. Protter]

A very intereesting thread.

I took a break in my DR work here to read it carefully and eat.

Seems that based on the answers HP-UX compares favorably to AIX and Solaris. In addition, consider the long term future of Sun, which the equities and bond markets doubts.

Questions
19) Does AIX/Solaris have a large "Enterprise" software line like OpenView? I know Glance can run on several OS's, but do AIX or Solaris have their own in house comparable product? What about something similar to NNM or Operations?

Part of Openview was ported to Solaris.


20) How can you tell the server platform you are running on (HP-UX "model" command)?


The model command works on newer HP-UX servers, but not older, and I believe its specific to HP-UX. Not fully certain on that.

SEP

[Florian Heigl (new acc)]

19)
IBM has the Tivoli line which is a bit wider than OpenView
Solaris: No idea about what sun offers in this area. I think most Sun shops go with CA unicenter.
20)
AIX: lsattr -El sys0 will among other values print out model and serial number.
Solaris: I think You get it right in dmesg, but I can't tell for sure.

on the syslog.conf issue in 16):
the command should be alog, not alot, I can't give You the exact syntax, my AIX toy is currenetly down (won't accept the new memory I got it). more specific aix has two logging facilities, one is syslog, and one is errpt.
so even w/o syslog.conf You get critical messages logged to errpt. syslog get's interesting for usage of a loghost which errpt won't support.

(if I may speak my personal opinion: AIX is interesting, especially for the huge amount of features You get with the os, but IBM is sheer madness and one should always try to relay support through a 3rd party. also, one should really go to a course on that, especially for some hands-on-training with the odm, the lvm etc. on aix You can fix about everything online, without reboot, if You know how to do it. If You don't, You'll easily break things.)

[Stephen Keane]

20) Solaris/sunos

$ uname -X
System = SunOS
Node = foo
Release = 5.8
KernelID = Generic_108528-14
Machine = sun4u
BusType =
Serial =
Users =
OEM# = 0
Origin# = 1
NumCPU = 1