What to do or not do when rebuilding the system

[Marty Metras]

I have to rebuild the OS, HP_UX 11 on a rp2450
Here are the things I think I should do before starting.
1. Backup, backup, backup
2. Create a ignite tape for vg00
3. print out the kernel parameters (kntune -l)
4. print out 'bdf'
5. print out 'fstab'
6. do a 'vgexport' fot each volume group
....
Any thing else I'm over looking?
Your thoughts...
Marty

[DCE · Accepted solution]

You might want to take this opportunity to apply the latest OS and application patches to the system as well.

Dave

[Mel Burslan]

run a cfg2html and print out the .txt output, just in case you hit a snag. It provides quite comprehensive setup information about your system.

[Marty Metras]

Thanks for the help
Marty

[AMAT SA]

Things usually over looked are

1. Printers
2. Crontabs
3. Any special startup scripts
4. Any special restricted SAM accesses
5. NFS mounts, Auto mounts, exports
7. patch lists
8. Kernel params
9. Users on the system(password file)
10. virtual IP for applications
11. APA configurations
12. configuration for NIC(netconf, hpbtlanconf, hpgelanconf etc., for 100FD or Auto - performance issues later..)
13. Application specific Links any created.(find command with -l)
14. hardening information (umasks, services etc.,)
15. on and on and on...

[Olivier Masse]

A good make_tape_recovery tape is usually a no brainer, never had problems when restoring on the same server.

But as a precaution, if you have two root disks in this server (not sure for a 24xx) and they are mirrored correctly, I suggest you install the new OS on only one disk and be careful not to scrap the other. If you have any problem, simply fallback by booting on the second disk.

Checking the mirror may involve a few steps, post back if you don't know them and someone should reply.

Good luck

[Devender Khatana]

Hi,

The safest option will be to check proper booting through alternate mirror disk if you have one prior to start rebuilding. Apart from that take backup of current /etc/passwd & /etc/group files if you want to preserve users accounts. Take swlist output for comparison of the patch levels if required later. All this can be kept in some VG which will be exported now. Allthough all these need can be satisfied if you have alternate mirroed boot disk. Other things that can be preserved apart from those allready posted are -

/etc/hosts
/etc/resolv.conf
/etc/rc.config.d/netconf

Also take a output of "vgdisplay -v /dev/vg00" for setting some important VG parameters.

We run nickel script for collecting all these information in a single output. Run that if you have that.

HTH,
Devender