OS UPGRADE

[johny2K]

aix/perts,

i'm in the process of upgrading aix os from 4.1.5 to 4.3.3.

i have 2 RS6K:

1 - RS6K F40 with aix 4.1.5
1 - RS6K 44P-270 with aix 4.3.3

i can't interrupt our production machine which is the F40-4.1.5 - it's an online system and application's critical.

any suggestions on how-to-do-it painlessly. i would appreciate detail procedure/s.

right now, i'm trying to copy things from F40 to 44p-270 but realizes it's not going to be the case should i try upgrading from the CD.

 

[bjverzal]

There is no painless way to do this. Copying files the way you are doing it will corrupt the system.

The only way to do this is via a "Migration Installation", which is performed while booting from the CD.

Bill.

 

[AIX5L]

The best way i think is working with a Dualboot.

One Disk with the Old System 4.1.5
On the other Disk you can do a Migration Installation.

So if your Applications will not run with 4.3.3 you can boot from the other Disk.

The other way is with mksysb-restore.

 

[johny2K]

thanks to both of you.

 

[aixnag]

hi,

The best way is :

1. take mksysb backup of your rootvg .
2. check how many physical volumes are availabel in your rootvg. suppose if you have additional same quantity of physical volumes (spare) then u can do alternate-disk-installation . withthis u are taking snapshot of your current rootvg (your boot sequence also change). Till then your production system will not distrubed.
3. find out off-time to reboot the system . and test it immediatly . if you find any problem, u can set back the bootlist. u can bring back your original production server without any dataloss.

incase , if you don't have spare harddisk to continue with alternate-disk-installation then you can install with migration option without committing.

bye
nagaraj (aix specialist)