server migration help needed

[Greta Blamire]

We are planning to migrate from a K260 to a L3000 and I would love to learn from other's experience instead of the hard way. So if you have done this, please tell me about your migration. No detail is too small, all replys are welcome! I've searched around this site for a cookbook on server migration, but didn't come up with much. Thanks!

[Vic Parker]

Hi Greta,

You are moving from a K to an L so I would assume this means you are moving from HP-UX 11 or 10.x to HP-UX 11i. How easy this will be really depends on your enviorment and the applications you will be moving. I think the easiest way to do this is to sit down and list all of the facilities and services you want to move and in sure that you will be copying all of the needed configuration files and again this depends, are your running NIS, DNS,...?

The most important recommendation I can give you is to not decommission the K immediately. Have the K as a standby until you are sure that everything is functioning on the L3000 identically to the K.

My $0.02,

Vic

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi Greta:

Before anyone responds, it would be a good idea
to explain your plan. e.g. Is your K-box currently running 10.20? Is your K-box running 32-bit 11.00 and you want to go to 64-bit 11i? Are you replacing everything or will you retain any external devices? Are you also migrating different versions of Oracle?
--- things like that.

If you provide that kind of data, I think you will get much more useful feedback.

Clay
If you provi

[MANOJ SRIVASTAVA]

Hi Grerta

Here is how to do it :
Identify the Operating System Configuration
Configure and Activate Sendmail ConfigurationMigrate User Accounts and Groups
Identify the Application Configuration
Identify Utilities Programs Needed for New Server
Identify the Application-Added Operating System File Systems/Files
Identify the application and data directories for migration (for the case where data resides on the EMC disk storage subsystem
Prepare for /home Directory Migration
Prepare to change the following files for final switchover of new server
Migrate Users? Cron Jobs
Prepare Print Services

I am attaching a detailed note we prepared for our organization.

Manoj Srivastava

[Thomas D. Harrison]

One little tidbit: If you're using Ignite/ux you may need to add an extra step.

When you get to the "Interact with IPL?>" question answer "Y". This will take you to the ISL prompt. At this point in Disaster Recovery we type:

ISL> hpux tape(;0):winstall

I'm not quite sure what this is for or whether it is exactly right for your situation. We restore our N4000 onto a K box.

Your situation may require some modification of this.

Good Luck! :-)

[Greta Blamire]

Yes, more details, sorry. We are going to only change the hardware. We'll be staying with HPUX 11.0 and Oracle 8.04. We don't use NFS, and our only application is an ERP, users come in on a thin client.

[Greta Blamire]

Manoj, excellent document, that's exactly the thing I'm looking for. I'm keeping my points rating below 8 so this message doesn't get one of those bunny-rabbit things and people stop replying. Thanks to Everybody.

[James R. Ferguson · Accepted solution]

Hi Greta:

Here's an overview of what I'd do.

I cold-install the new server with a update-to-date set of General Release (GR) patches and Applications and Diagnostics (MirrorDisk/UX, Glance, STM, etc. etc). I'd (re)size vg00 filesystems to take care of any space issues that have constrained you, and I'd install Oracle on the new server.

Having done this, I'd copy key configuration files to the new server and establish the nearly identical operating environment.

At 'cut-over', I'd 'vgexport'/'vgimport' the data (assuming the same disk).

Lastly, I'd leave the old server intact for about a week, until you were comfortable will the new environment.

...JRF...

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi Greta,

I too would cold-install the OS along with the applications and latest patches. I would also
do an Oracle install rather than copy the existing executables. You would almost certainly have to do a relink of the Oracle executables because of possible differences in shared libraries. The data itself can be copied/vgimported and will work just fine. The only real gotcha is if you are using physical disk raw/io in Oracle. Your device nodes will almost certainly not be the same.

One thing to consider is a possible update to 11i now. It's really the perfect time. I've run it now for several months and it is solid. The only problem I've had was a minor bug in stm and the latest general patch release fixed that. I've not found a single 11.0 application that will not run under 11i.

Regards, Clay

[Jim Turner]

Greta,

I've migrated a few Oracle boxes. Having new HW with identical OS is the best possible scenario. Here are the things I copy over to the new box:
1. /home/*
2. /u##/* (bulk of the oracle stuff)
3. /etc/passwd
4. /etc/group
5. /etc/*ora*
6. /etc/*tns*
7. /tcb/files/auth/*
8. /usr/contrib/bin/*
9. /usr/local/bin/*
10. /sbin/init.d/*ora*
11. /sbin/rc*.d/*ora*
12. /var/spool/cron/*
13. /var/mail/*
14. /etc/hosts
15. /etc/resolv.conf
16. /etc/nsswitch.conf
17. /etc/rc.config.d/netconf
Note: #7 assumes a trusted system.

If you let your new box trust your old box, you can use the following command line (originating on your old box) for the copies:
find | cpio -ov | compress - | remsh '(cd /; uncompress - | cpio -ivmud)'

You'll get dupe stdout unless you remove the verbose (v) switches on one of the cpio's. I like using cpio for this because it absolutely preserves everything (mode, ownership, times, dates, etc.).

You may need to relink Oracle once everything is on the new box. Also, don't forget to update /etc/rc.config.d/netconf and /etc/hosts on the new box if needed.

All the best,
Jim

[Neale Machin]

Greta,
just one small thing we fell foul of a year ago
Make sure all your uids are the same and Gids

I noticed that you are running otacle 804 your probably aware that this version is no longer fully supported

Mark:)

[Michael Tully]

Hi Greta,

See the posting by Bill Hassell in this
link which gives excellent recommendations
for some basic security.

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,1150,0x4499e7e60861d511abcd0090277a778c,00.html

HTH
-Michael

[Magdi KAMAL]

Hi Greta,

First of all, really important, generate 2 sets of Ignite-UX tape ( entire vg00 : with option -A ).

******
This can allow you to restore any configuration file to RELATIVE place on disk.
******

You may save the following :
- Network configuration including NIC info ( speed, mtu size, duplex, ..)
- NetBios configuration
- Advanced Server for Unix configuration.
- Disks configuration ( LVM ).
- Users accounts and their environments.
- Users Groups.
- Scheduled jobs.
- Kernel parameters.
- /etc/hosts file.
- List of installed software and patches.
- Application specific configuration ( for Oracle : tnsnames.ora, initSID.ora, LISTENER.ora, ... ).


/etc/passwd
/etc/group
/etc/nsswitch.conf
/etc/nsswitch.nis
/etc/profile
/etc/fstab
/etc/mnttab
/etc/hosts
/etc/services
/etc/rc.config.d/netconf
/etc/rc.config.d/nddconf
/etc/resolv.conf

/var/adm/cron/at.allow
/var/adm/cron/cron.allow

the list from /dev/vg* for creating volume groups and logical volumes.

/usr/spool/cron/atjobs/*
/usr/spool/cron/crontabs/*


Magdi

[Greta Blamire]

Wow, you guys are awesome!!!
James, would add anything to the excellent list of key config files that Jim and Magdi noted?
Clay, we plan on going to 11i after the migration. Attempting to do one thing at a time.
Michael, thanks for the great link, Bill is the coolest.
Thanks to everyone,
Thomas,
Manoj,
Clay,
James,
Jim,
Mark,
Michael,
Magdi
Because of your help, my life will not be miserable. :-)
Greta - See you in Chicago!

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Greta:

The list of files provided by Jim & Magdi are excellent. Here's the list I keep to trigger:

# /.forward
# /.profile
# /etc/profile
# /etc/group
# /etc/hosts
# /etc/inetd.conf
# /etc/inittab
# /etc/nsswitch
# /etc/ntp.conf
# /etc/passwd
# /etc/rc.config.d/netconf
# /etc/rc.config.d/netdaemons
# /etc/rc.config.d/nfsconf
# /etc/resolv.conf
# /etc/sendmail.cf
# /etc/services
# /etc/shells
# /etc/shutdown.allow
# /var/adm/cron/*.allow
# /var/adm/fbackupfiles/*
# /var/spool/cron/crontabs/*
# /sbin/init.d/

...and of course, don't forget to add your volume group 'vgexport' mapfiles too.

I like to "mark" my /sbin/init.d/ as owned by "root" with a group of "root". This makes them stand-out in an 'ls' listing and helps me pick them up on a server-by-server basis.

As an aside, I don't unconditionally reload configuration files if I'm actually doing an OS upgrade. Rather I like to 'diff' the older ones against the newer ones to see what has changed (if anything) and then marry my customizations into the newer templates.

With regards!

...JRF...

[someone_4]

.profile was a big one for me.
We did 2 switch over last week. And we have remsh's going on everywhere. It was a staight forward migration we only changed the boxes.
We got everything up and working. But my server kept sendming out remshd login incorrect error to the root mail account. We couldnt think of what it was. We put allot of thought into the switch over. But the smallest detail affected us.

Richard

[David Fu]

Greta,

Not related to file migration but I am going through the same thing in a project as with your case. This is on Oracle binaries though. Although its safer to reinstall Oracle on the new box, you can copy the oracle binaries without problems - assuming OS are identical. Just ensure the following files are included
# /etc/oratab
# /etc/rc.config.d/oracle
# /sbin/init.d/ora
# $ORACLE_HOME - Oracle binaries

After copying them to the target directory, check the installer directory (usually
$ORACLE_HOME/orainst) and inspect the file make.log.

In this file, is the sequence of relinking of Oracle binaries which you can perform should your Oracle binaries directory in the new box differ in the installation mountpoint (due to symbolic links, etc) from the old box

Look for the lines like:
Action:Adding Parallel Query option to libknlopt.a
Command: (make -f ins_rdbms.mk pqopt), Out,Err=/u09/app/oracle/product/7.3.3/orainst/make.log
Status:0

The series of action/command/status describes what kind relinking was done depending on your installation.

Then create a shell script (called relink.sh or something like that) and copy the commands from the "Command:" section.
eg
make -f $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/ins_rdbms.mk procopt >logfile
make -f $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/ins_rdbms.mk ioracle >>logfile
make -f $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/ins_rdbms.mk install >>logfile
make -f $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/clntsh.mk libclntsh >>logfile
.
.
.

Running that script should relink the binaries and allow you start Oracle. You can verify whether this works by starting server manager.

Oracle Metalink support has something on manually relinking the binaries. Great help in situations where the installer CD cannot be found.

G'luck!

Rgds,
David

[Marcin Wicinski]

Hi Greta,

Remember to copy config files with -p option to preserve previlages and export and import volume groups with -s option to ensure hw path recognition.

good luck,