installing unix 11 on several WS: time saved with ignite?

[Alessandra Di Paola]

Hello all,
I would like to have a rough estimation on how much time would be saved if upgrading several identical WS using the ignite tool make_tape_recovery instead of make a cold installation of each WS from CD.

Can you help me on that?
thanks,
Alessandra

[John Carr_2]

Hi

the more workstations the more time you save this is what it was designed for make the best of it

good luck John.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi:

You are not quite asking the right question. A better approach is the 'Golden System Image'. Study that section of the 'Ignite/UX Administrator's Guide'. The idea is that you set up a machine with the desired OS, patches, kernel configuration, and possibly applications as well. You then install over the network from an Ignite Server. The advantage of this method is that several installs can be going at once. A typical Ignite install takes about half an hour (depending upon your network and hardware).

When I've had to upgrade several workstations this approach has been a real time-saver. The main task that you have to do on each install is assign hostnames and ip addresses but almost everything else is fully automatic.

Food for thought, Clay

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

The HP Education Centers typically Ignite a dozen workstations in about an hour or two with no tape at all. Instead, a Golden Image is created with minor customization such as IP address and hostname, and all the images can be pushed out to existing systems with a simple script.

If the boxes are dead (nothing bootable), then it requires less than a minute to interact with the processor ROMs to direct the workstation to the Golden Image server and start reloading the boot disk(s). Doing it by tape requires a tape drive for each compter.

Any alternate (ie, install from the CDROM, then patch from the CDROM, then install applications from the CDROM, then patch from the CDROM, etc...is going to take HOURS per workstation.

[David Hawes-Johnson]

If you can set up an ignite server on the same network as the workstations, then that is probably the best way to go (as has been said, you can ignite more than one at a time).

But if you don't have an ignite server or it isn't on the same network, then tapes are pretty easy to get going and take the same amount of time to ignite (I have been cloning 57 D-class and 30 K-class servers and they only take 30-45 mins each).

Just make sure that all the software and setting are in place (such as NTP, DNS, userids if they are all the same) and run a make_tape_recovery.

Remember of course that if you make a non-interactive tape, then the IP addresses and the like will be transfered over from the source machine - so either:

a) make a non-interactive and change the settings
b) give the source machine place holder hostnames/IP address before creating the tape and change them afterwards (with a script perhaps?)
c) Investigate the make_sys_image command and use it to clean up some of the customised files (I've never used this option before)

HTH