Restoring a K Class to an N Class Using make_Recovery

[Marcus_52]

Is it possible to restore a KClass server (K580)to an L Class (L2000) using ignite/ make_recovery? Tried it, and it doesn't seem to want to work?

[Patrick Wallek]

I'm not surprised that it doesn't work. I think the 2 machines are just too different for it to work.

[Bill Hassell]

Simple answer: won't work. There is so little in common between the L-class and the K-class. This is primarily due to the very different I/O drivers, backplane adapters and interface cards. If you work real hard by adding all the L-class drivers to your K-class system, it might work but since the boot process requires a different loader, it will still fail.

I suspect that this is an effort to quickly upgrade the K580 to an L2000 but it just won't work. In general, your Ignite images will only work on one class of machines.

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

Here is something you may be able to do.

You can create a make_sys_image golden image of your system. That image is less hardware dependent than the make_tape_recovery image. I hope you didn't actually use make_recovery, its obsolete.

If you did you may want to try and go with make_tape_recovery, though I agree with the first two posts, the liklihood of success is low.

A golden image is more of a software image. It can take your basic configuration, software and some of your add in software and move replicate between systems that are dissimilar in hardware.

You'll still have to deal with putting in new hardware enablement and platform specific patches though.

I've gotten a base image taken on a D class server to go onto an L class machine. I got the boot image and the oracle databases to come up quite nicely. I'm not saying it was pretty, but that can be done since its less hardware dependent. For production purposes I went with the more convention route of cold install of the OS followed by normal installation of all applications.

Some documentation.
http://docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/fsearch/framedisplay?top=/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90849/B2355-90849_top.html&con=/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90849/00/00/34-con.html&toc=/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90849/00/00/34-toc.html&searchterms=golden%7cimage%7cignite&queryid=20041108-210226

Steps to create a golden image.
http://docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/fsearch/framedisplay?top=/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90153/B2355-90153_top.html&con=/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90153/00/00/61-con.html&toc=/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90153/00/00/61-toc.html&searchterms=golden%7cimage%7cignite&queryid=20041108-210226

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[Marcus_52]

Thanks for the relies. Certainly confirms my suspicions. Looks like I will be attempting to either reload from scratch or trying the golden image route on Friday.

Appreciate the document links.

Thanks.
Marcus

[Angus Crome]

Yes, it is possible, and I have done it. However, the caveat is, the K must be running 64-bit 11.00 or later, and your make_recover/make_net_recovery has to be relatively recent (June 2002 or later). The later the better. I would fully patch the K prior to running the upgrade as well (latest recommended patch bundles, plus all the L-class hardware drivers you can fit on it).

It actually works pretty well, we took an 11.00 K460 to an L2000 and an 11.11 K580 to an N4000 using this method, back in April 2003. We had a few networking issues to work out (Gigabit Fibre), but we were able to get it loaded in single user mode and everything was fine after that. They are still running quite nicely today.