HPUX cold install from 11.00 to 11.23

[Adam Noble]

All,

I hope somebody can give me some advice. I need to upgrade a HP server to 11.23 from 11.00. I see that it is not possible to use update so I need to do a clean install. I am however struggling to determine how to do this cleanly. I intend to carry out a cold install on another test system and then load all of the neccesary software. I will then take an ignite image which I can load onto the system I need to upgrade once the outage window starts.

The main problem I have is trying to determine which areas need to be recovered from backup such as /usr/local and /etc. I assume however I can't just recover the whole of /etc for example. Does anyone have any advice regarding this so as I recover all of the neccesary files so the system can function. This server should be relatively easy as there is no database and all data is on the root disks.

[Andy Torres]

You have the luxury of having a transition system. Load 11.23 cold, load your applications, then cut an Ignite tape once you're satisfied everything's running well. Don't worry about what's under /etc and /usr - they should be covered in the Ignite tape. Make sure you back up your current system and cut a fresh Ignite tape as well before starting and you can overcome whatever may go badly.

[Adam Noble]

Andy I'm afraid I'm not so lucky as that. The system has an X25 connection which users utilise to access a number of switches. The test system does not have the X25 connection therefore I can't test functionality!!!

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

Adam,

You really ought to develop a list of the files that you've customized on your systems. I'm attaching a little script that I use to copy all of our customizations when I'm installing a new machine. Some of these you will obviously not have, but the list should give you a starting point.


Pete

[Adam Noble]

OK I guess this is going to be a bit trickier than I imagined, thanks for the help tho!!

[Steven E. Protter]

Step 1

Verify the server supports 11.23.

Step 2

the steps above provided by others.

This is not something that can be done in a standard 4 hour maintenance window.

If you are fortunate and your applications are all supported and support feature/script/config migration, you might get it done in a weekend.

SEP

[Andy Torres]

Too bad you can't establish a test X25 connection to verify things work before pulling the trigger. Going to 11.23 means you're moving from PA-RISC to ia64, right? You'll want to make sure your applications work on Itamium. It's likely you'll need to load the 64-bit version of your applications and have your programmers recompile, etc. In that case, you'll definitely want to do the testing before the time of the actual upgrade. Nobody likes to figure things don't work AFTER they've blown the old system away. :-)

Might not hurt to get your local HP software engineer involved for some advice on upgrade path, and maybe they have some procedures already devised that may save you time and effort.

Looks like you have some intense fact-finding coming. At least you'll have a good disaster recovery procedure after you're done, huh? Great luck with your install.