Two OS environments

[Fidel Ramirez_1]

Hi Guys,

I’m wondering if two HP-UX OS environments are supported at different times on the same box.
For example, a set of boot drives for HP-UX 11.31 with their own disk drives for application data AND another set of boot drives for HP-UX 11.11 with their own drives for other applications. Applications on each OS environment are different and therefore the disk drives for them should be different.
Manually selecting one boot drive or another would select the applications that would run.
This would be something like multiplexing applications on the same box.
Some time ago, HP Support said they don’t support this type of environment.
I would like to hear comments on this kind of setup.
Thank you,

Fidel

[Steven Schweda · Accepted solution]

> Some time ago, HP Support said they don't
> support this type of environment.

I can't imagine why not. Or even how they
could tell if you were doing it. (I suspect
miscommunication or bad memory here. If you
really worry about official approval, then
I'd try a fresh inquiry.)

Around here, I have an rx2600 which says:

EFI Boot Manager ver 1.10 [14.61] Firmware ver 2.31 [4411]

Please select a boot option

OpenVMS on DKA0: PKA0.0
HP-UX Primary Boot: 0/1/1/0.0x1.0x0
Debian GNU/Linux
EFI Shell [Built-in]
Boot Option Maintenance Menu
System Configuration Menu

Use ^ and v to change option(s). Use Enter to select an option


That's three entirely different operating
systems, one each on three different disks:

Scsi(Pun0,Lun0) SEAGATE ST373453LC DX10 (320 MBytes/sec)
Scsi(Pun1,Lun0) SEAGATE ST336607LC DS09 (320 MBytes/sec)
Scsi(Pun2,Lun0) SEAGATE ST336607LC DS09 (320 MBytes/sec)


Doing that routinely makes it hard to imagine
what could go wrong with a couple of
different versions of, say, HP-UX. (I do
that with VMS on old VAX systems, and on one
Alpha, but not with HP-UX. But I wouldn't
hesitate to do it with HP-UX if I had any
reason to do it.)

If you wanted to use one disk in multiple
environments, then you'd need to ensure that
the file systems on it are compatible with
all the OS versions involved. (I do that
with VMS systems, too, but with HP-UX you'd
probably need to worry more about the vxfs
stuff across OS versions. And, without the
kind of disk partitioning schemes used by PC
operating systems, I wouldn't try to put two
of anything onto one disk, but you didn't
suggest doing any of that.)

[Fidel Ramirez_1]

Hi Steven,

What you're doing is exactly what I want to do but with just HP-UX versions. For this I need to be careful on not using the same data drives on the different OS versions.
Thank you, for your prompt and helpful answer.

Fidel