Switching new and old server

[Michael D. Zorn]

We have an old HP-9000 running HP-UX 10.01, and a new HP rp3410 running HP-UX 11i.

Each server has a nodename, and I have mail coming in on each.

The old one is just about ready to be turned off.

I'd like to switch the names, so eMail that went to the old one will come into the new one. Both are connected to the company LAN, which handles DNS lookups &c.

Old machine:
#uname -a
HP-UX acme-1 B.10.01 C 9000/819 ......

New machine:
#uname -a
HP-UX acme-2 B.11.11 U 9000/800 .....

My email on the old machine comes in to me@acme-1.mmm.mmm.mmm. I'd like that to be the new machine.

What-all do I have to change on each machine? Should I turn off one and change the other? Is

#uname -S acme-1

a good start?

Should I worry about the short interval when both machines have the same nodename?

[James R. Ferguson · Accepted solution]

Hi Michael:

By default, the nodename matches the hostname. If you examine '/sbin/init.d/hostname' you will see that the nodename (as shown by 'uname') is usually null and when null is set equal to the server's hostname.

I suggest you start with your old server and change its hostname first. Then on your new server, change its hostname to be that of the old server's. Make any DNS changes in your DNS server(s) to match, and you are done.

To change a server's hostname, run:

# /sbin/set_parms hostname

This will prompt you for a value of "hostname"; modify the appropriate files ('/etc/rc.config.d/netconf', 'etc/hosts', etc.) and reboot bringing up networking with the new name.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

There is some danger in the approach of changing the hostname of the system. If oracle is installed and configured and you change the hostname of the system, reconfiguration of oracle is required to get the database to work after the switch.

So long as the two machines do not have the same ip address at the same time, there is no problem with them having the same hostname.

SEP

[Michael D. Zorn]

James: I'll follow your suggestions, then come back and let you know how things turned out.

Steven: We're OK there, we don't run Oracle. The IP addresses are different. But we do have another database (Ingres), which might depend on the hostname. I'll see if I can get any help from Ingres. That may take a while.

I'll experiment on the old server (running an older version of Ingres). If that works, The rest should be easy.

I have a bad feeling that it won't. If it doesn't, I may have to leave the hostnames as is. That's not a huge problem, but I'll have to tell all my eMail contacts about the change.

[Michael D. Zorn]

As SEP pointed out, some databases look at the host name. Ours - Ingres - is one of them. But it was just a matter of changing a few things in one of their directories.