installing PA hp-ux 11i on A500 systems

[Kallol Biswas]

Hello,
I need to install hp-ux 11i on a A500 PARISC system. There are two 17gb scsi disks,
unfortunately HFS can't be installed on whole disk with this size. I do not want to install lvm on the root disk. Is there a way to workaround the problem?
Will fdisk help? May be I can use a linux CD to create a small partition and try to install the hp-ux OS, but I was told PA-RISC systems would not boot from a partition. Any help?

Regards,
Kallol

[Geoff Wild]

Why would you not want LVM?

HFS is limited and will be obsolete...

Your work around if you choose, is to put in a 4GB disk for 1 of the 17GB....

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the options for 11i are LVM or VXM...

only /stand remains HFS...

Rgds...Geoff

[Kallol Biswas]

Hello,
I have been modifying lvm switch table entry to put routines of my own. This is required to capture & analyze data at volume level.

It is good not to put the root partition under lvm control. Otherwise debugging and testing my software will be difficult.

Thanks,
Kallol

[G. Vrijhoeven]

Hi Kallol,

check this link:
http://docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/fsearch/framedisplay?top=/hpux/onlinedocs/5990-8172/5990-8172_top.html&con=/hpux/onlinedocs/5990-8172/00/00/52-con.html&toc=/hpux/onlinedocs/5990-8172/00/00/52-toc.html&searchterms=disks%7cmanaging&queryid=20041026-122517

It states:
You will not be able to use a partitioned disk for your root disk. You will only be able to use a nonpartitioned disk, LVM, or VxVM disk for this purpose.

If you want to test your software, why not use LINUX...
http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/tech/tech_TechDocumentDetailPage_IDX/1,1701,276,00.html

HTH,

Gideon

[Geoff Wild]

I was just reading "HP-UX 11i Version 2 September 2004 Release Notes"

http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/5990-8153/5990-8153.html

"Hierarchical File System (HFS) (Deprecated)

With this notice, HP is giving advanced warning to customers that the HFS (also known as UFS) file system type is now deprecated. It will be removed from the OS in a future release, to be determined.
Customers are encouraged to start migrating their data from HFS to either VxFS (VERITAS File System) and/or AdvFS (Advanced File System, which will be initially available in HP-UX 11i v3) file systems. Customers can consult with HP support staff regarding the choice of file system type that best fits their site and system needs.

In a future HP-UX release, the HFS file system type will not be available with the base OS system and will be generally unsupported (for new releases). Support will continue for earlier releases which included HFS in the base product.

There is no functional impact in this release of HP-UX 11i v2, as HFS will not be removed until a future release. However, performance of heavily accessed HFS filesystems may not be acceptable on machines with more than 64-processors. VxFS is required for performance and scaling on such systems,1 as HFS is known to have CPU scaling issues. "

And from this doc "HP-UX 11i Version 1 Installation and Update Guide":

http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/5990-7279/5990-7279.html

Under "Disk Space and Memory Requirements"

It states:

"To update your HP server or workstation to HP-UX 11i v1, it must have the following:

All servers require a minimum of 128 MB (256 MB recommended). Exceptions include the following:
A-Class servers with HP A5838A LAN-SCSI Combo Card: 256 MB minimum
All other systems: 64 MB minimum (256 MB recommended)

Total swap space required when updating or installing is 1 GB. A minimum of 128 MB of free swap space is required.

LVM or VxVM partitions:
/ (root): 30 MB free space
/usr: 220-771 MB free space (see Free Disk-space Requirements for /usr and /opt)
/stand: 100 MB free space (to expand /stand, see Increasing /stand)
/var: 160 MB free space.
/opt: 225-685 MB free space (see Free Disk-space Requirements for /usr and /opt)

4GB root disk, minimum, whether installing or updating to HP-UX 11i v1, with or without an OE. This can be a single disk drive or combination of physical disks configured as one root volume. "

So, I don't think you have a choice...you must upgrade to LVM or VXVM...

Rgds...Geoff

[D Block 2]

You can boot linux on PARISC if you feel this is your best option. when you say, modifying the switch-table, maybe you mean the kernel system call table for your own monitor kernel functions.

Load HPUX 11i using default LVM, and if you need to monitor either use your own STREAMS kernel module or write an applicaiton using Real-time priority system calls.

best of luck.

[Steven E. Protter]

Chiming in:

For a HP-UX isntallation, you need to give the root disk over to lvm or vxvm. Those are really your only viable choices.

You probably can not use the Linux cd to create a small partition for HP-UX.

HP-UX does not work or play well with Linux.

If you expect to boot HP-UX it needs an entire root or boot disk all of its own. It can co-exist with Linux on other volumes, being bootable, but the configuration you propose and defend is probably not supported.

I'm almost 100% sure it won't work either.

Time to go back to the drawing board.

The best course of action is to decide what disks PA-Linux will live on and what disk(s) HP-UX are going to live on.

SEP

[Ted Buis]

You want to use LVM, but you can compress a number of the file systems into a few if you don't want to guess on the sizes. When you install from the CD, use the advanced option and set up the file system sizes the way you want. If you delete them, then they will show up in the root file system.