upgrading to 11.0

[Tim Downs]

I have been reading various posting regarding the upgrade for hpux 10.20 to 11.0. The majority of the posting state that the upgrade method is not recommended and a fresh install is required. We need to go to 11.0 because of Oracle 8.1.6 and would prefer not to do a fresh install. I would think that HP wouldn't put out an upgrade option if it doesn't work. Has anyone had a positive experience with the upgrade from 10.20 to 11.0?

Thanks,

[Rick Garland]

I would go with the fresh install.

I tried to do an upgrade to a 10.20 server 4 times and it never worked.

sendmail complained
libraries missing
the SD did not upgrade correctly
etc...

There were many problems and these are only some of them. However, your upgrade may go smoothly.

[Tim Malnati]

I have not performed an upgrade to 11.X. I'm sure that my previous experience with upgrading 9.X to 10.X years ago let a very sour taste. The fact of the matter is that a variety of trash tends to build up over time, and the upgrade path will keep it along for the ride. A particular problem is the variety of different applications and other add-ons that are installed. Will the combination get upgraded as well? How difficult will it be to locate and verify them all? They might be fine in an 11.X environment, but then again, the potential is there that one of them could crash the machine. This is particularly problematic down the street if nobody uses the software for a while and it suddenly is used and either does not work or worse. There is obviously no way that HP can possibly test the upgrade procedure and processes in a way to handle every possible software combination that users may have. I suspect that you will probably want to got 64 bit as well which accentuates to potential problems futher. The bottom line is that a new install is certainly cleaner and is much more predictable. You can vgexport and vgimport the data areas to save time, but I would suspect that this is a good time to handle any maintenance issues from a drive perspective as well.

[Antoanetta Naghiu]

I've done the upgrade from 10.20 to 11.0 in K220 machines with MC ServiceGuard and Sybase. It is fine since then (nov.99).
Just follow the Install and upgrade manual.
There are a few things that you have to take care of:
0. make an ignite tape+good backup of whole env.
1. / must be a list 100MB.(103B)
2. /usr must have at list 600M, 120M available (700M)
3. /stand must have at least 13MB available (48M total, 29 used, 14M free)
4./var must have at least 500 M, 20M available-much more than that (600M).
/opt shoud have at least 55 M available.
Also you shoud have at least 30MB swap available
I put in brakets my actual configuration.
There are a few other things to do: remove VME before update, install some patches (PHCO_18183)
Remove info about prior patches: backup /var/adm/sw/products,
swmodify -u PH??_????*.* PH??*
rm -rf /var/adm/sw/patch.
If using mirror, disable mirror before upgrade.
Get all new licenses, have the dba around and... good luck.
This is minimal config. Do not start if you do not have the disk space available. Read docs for details.

[Antoanetta Naghiu]

K220 supported just 32 version of HP11. For 64 might be other requirements, I don't know that box do you have and which version you like to go with.
If / <100M, and you like to try to increase it, see
http://my1.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,1150,0x05547e990647d4118fee0090279cd0f9,00.html

It is not supported but is working.
Your choise!

[Eddie Warren]

Tim,
If you follow the "Installing and Updating HP-UX 11.0 Additional Core Enhancements" manual it should go pretty cleanly. The books HP part number is B3782-90785" dated November 1999. i've done it a few times, taking it step by step and they were successful. As you have indicated, not all systems can be a clean install. Best of luck to you.

Eddie

[Dave Wherry]

I did one upgrade from 10.20 to 11.0 on a B132L workstation which is my OmniBack Cell Server. The upgrade went fine, really no big problems. Of course that is a smaller, simple system. Only one application.

To expand on Antoanetta's post on doing the upgrade, I first did a make recovery tape and resized my logical volumes as the upgrade did abort the first time because several of the lvols were too small.

Although it worked, I also agree with Tim's comments about over time trash accumulates on a system and I do prefer a cold install to clean it up. I'll be rebuilding my workstation in the next couple of weeks just to clean it up. I was pressed for time last year and the upgrade went faster for my situation.

If you vgexport everything besides vg00, do your cold install and then vgimport all of the other volume groups you save a lot of time in backing up and not having to restore all of that data. Still do the backup because bad things do happen sometimes.

[Reid Thompson]

I updated a C class workstation from 10.20 to 11.0 with minimal problems ( see below). I followed the upgrade materials( read through all of them thoroughly and take notes before beginning). The only problem I had regarded the size of /stand. The upgrade materials state that the recommended size for /stand for 11.0 is larger than that for 10.20. Due to other software on this machine ( Oracle, Network Node Manager, SNAPlus, TOKEN RING, etc) several kernel rebuilds were required to add functionality. After a couple of rebuilds, I ended up in a position where kernel rebuilds were failing due to lack of space in /stand. This required that I store the previous kernel ( vmunix.prev ) to a different directory and cleanup any unecessary files from /stand before I could generate a successful kernel rebuild. I believe that the files in /build can be safely removed before a new build is attempted- VERIFY THIS WITH THE HP SUPPORT CENTER.

[Karen Elrod]

When you upgrade there is a problem with Online JFS. Talk to HP support for needed patches (and the sequence that those patches must be installed). If you do not, and then must increase a filesystem size it will not work.

[James Odak]

I just attended a 2 day class called 11.00 workshop, first day was just upgrading from 10.20 to 11.00

well out fo 12 people in the class
3 systems sucessfully upgrading on the first try
the other 9 did upgrade on the second round

and after going through all the step to upgrade, i would have to say it really is not all that much easier then a fresh install
plus if you have low free space on your var usr opt file systems the upgrade is not going to work anyway
i would suggest if you have multiple servers
try it on one if it goes smothly for you fine
but if the first attemp fails or any attemp for that matter, be prepared to do a fresh install anyway
my 2 cents
good luck

[James Odak]

I just attended a 2 day class called 11.00 workshop, first day was just upgrading from 10.20 to 11.00

well out fo 12 people in the class
3 systems sucessfully upgrading on the first try
the other 9 did upgrade on the second round

and after going through all the step to upgrade, i would have to say it really is not all that much easier then a fresh install
plus if you have low free space on your var usr opt file systems the upgrade is not going to work anyway
i would suggest if you have multiple servers
try it on one if it goes smothly for you fine
but if the first attemp fails or any attemp for that matter, be prepared to do a fresh install anyway
my 2 cents
good luck

[James Odak]

I just attended a 2 day class called 11.00 workshop, first day was just upgrading from 10.20 to 11.00

well out fo 12 people in the class
3 systems sucessfully upgrading on the first try
the other 9 did upgrade on the second round

and after going through all the step to upgrade, i would have to say it really is not all that much easier then a fresh install
plus if you have low free space on your var usr opt file systems the upgrade is not going to work anyway
i would suggest if you have multiple servers
try it on one if it goes smothly for you fine
but if the first attemp fails or any attemp for that matter, be prepared to do a fresh install anyway
my 2 cents
good luck

[Dave Wherry]

Tim,
One other thing I did in the upgrade process. I did the upgrade on my mirror disk. There is a document in the ITRC, ID# X1401978 that explains how to split off the mirror of your OS and boot from the mirror. You can then perform the upgrade on that disk. If the upgrade succeeds you then rejoin the mirror to the primary and copy of the new OS onto the primary. If the upgrade fails you just go back to the primary disk and there is no recovery. You're back where you started.
It was invaluable when the upgrade failed the first time because several lvols were too small.

[tammy rogers · Accepted solution]

I have now upgraded 15 servers from 10.20 to 11.0 (both 32 and 64 bit as well as two servers upgraded from the 32 bit verson to the 64 bit version). I have found that the easiest way to do this is:
1. Attach an external drive for the upgrade or unmirror one of your internal drives and
use this to upgrade.
2. Create an Ignite tape with your vg00 image.
3. When loading the Ignite tape onto your drive increase /usr to 650, /var - 550 , /opt - 250-350.
4. Swremove your 10.20 applications. ( I leave the 10.20 patches and do a cleanup -i
after the upgrade is complete).
5. Upgrade your swgettools to 11.0
6. If doing a 64 bit upgrade refer to the 11.0 upgrade manual to verify hardware and firmware requirements.
7. SWINSTALL HP-UX 11.0. I have noticed that the patch PHKL_18543 takes a while
to load so get a good book to read if you are babysitting the machine.
8.The upgrade from a 32 bit to a 64 bit 11.0 is a little nastier.. If you have a HP-PB 100
Base T lan card I recommend you remove the btlan1 driver from the kernel before starting the upgrade because the compiler will crap out during the swinstall.
9. Remember when doing the 32 to 64 bit upgrade to specify -x reinstall=true -x reinstall_files=true.
10. After the upgrade, verify everything is OK and then mirror your external drive to your internal drives.. If everything isn't OK you can easily boot off your internal drive
back to 10.20.