Upgrading from 4.1.5. to 4.3.3 on 7013-J30 1

[wpdavids]

I will be upgrading from Aix 4.1.5 to 4.3.3 on a 7013-J30. What is the best upgrade method to use. Complete Over Write, Migration, Preservation. I know people that like the Complete Over Write, but you have to restore /home and other user login files. Why would any one use this method?

I know IBM recommends the migration installation in my case.

I have upgraded systems using "smitty update_all" what is this upgrade called ?

Any ones advice is appreciated..

 

[aixqueen]

Migration is the recommended for your system....

There are many things to worry about when you do a migration...of course make sure you have a good mksysb...
and you have all the patches for 4.1.5 installed...and have done
the lppchk -v and lppchk -c before you even start...

4.3.3 requires a larger hd5 which you may not have contiguous space to add....
Make sure that you do not have any cards that are not supported at 4.3.3 ...like graphics cards etc..

http://techsupport.services.ibm.com...mode=9&documents=391623329313242&database=aix

http://techsupport.services.ibm.com...mode=9&documents=B90605188914736&database=aix

--------------------------------------------------------------
Memory Requirements for Aix Version 4.3 has changed. It requires a
minimum of 32 MB of physical Memory, 64MB suggested. lsdev -Cc memory
for older microchannel machines
or bootinfo -r to see what you have. If you have under 64MBs pass on doing
the migration until you have the additional memory.

Initial Paging Space Requirements
Aix Version 4.3 requires the initial paging space (/dev/hd6) to be a minimum
of 64 MB in size

Make sure that you have enough hard disk space for this migration!. Disk
Space Requirements (recommendations): (this is free space, besides what
you already have installed as far as filesets)

/ 16 MB
/usr 256 MB
/var 16 MB
/tmp 16 MB

This is based on loading Network Support, X11,and CDE.

Filesets bos.sysmgt.sysbr (mksysb fileset) and bos.net.nfs.client are not
automatically installed in AIX 4.3. Java and Web based System managment
are automatically installed

Remember that the 4.3.2 OS is 648 mgs of stuff on the 1st CD, 276 mgs for
the 2nd cd, and 353 mgs for the third cd. It needs working room to install this
as well. Check to see how much free space you have and potentially how
much will be added to your system. The 4.3 Migration Guide is a great
redbook to help you plan. Its number is SG24-5116-00 and can be ordered
from the

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com

Assume that tty definition and printers will not migrate correctly. Have this
information on paper so that you can recreate if you have to. If it makes it
great, if not you are prepared. Printer names changed, and do not migrate
well, ttys migrate usually, but the xon/xoff defaults to DTR and the alternate
pin defaults to no. Check the definitions if you migrate and the ttys do not
work. Also add clocal to runtime and stty (the end of the string) if you are still
having problems.

Additional things to note: If bos.rte.control fails, it is probably due to a missing
shutdown:!:21 in the /etc/group file. perf:!:20 was also added to the new
groups in version 4.x. Which might not of existed in 3.2.5

IF space is not there an allocated, I have seen many a migration fail. If you
migrate the hd5 area of your system is usually not adequate and will cause
problems later. It has to be contiguous....to up it now if you can....

hd5 not large enough The boot logical volume (hd5) must be at least 8
megabytes. The system you are installing has a boot logical volume smaller
than this, and the system does not have enough free contiguous physical
partitions on diskname to increase the size of the boot logical volume. Please
reboot in normal mode and correct this problem, or restart the installation and
choose an overwrite install. Use the lspv -M diskname command to see the
current allocation map of the disk.
OR

Error: No space available to create a larger boot logical volume. In order to
proceed with this installation the size of the boot logical volume (hd5) must be
increased to 8 MB. At this time there are not N contiguous physical partitions
available on the boot disk (diskname) for recreating the larger boot logical
volume. You must free up this space by removing or relocating one or more
logical volumes or file systems from diskname. Use lspv -M diskname to see
its current partition allocation map.

Explanation Starting with AIX Version 4.3.3 the boot logical volume (blv),
logical volume hd5, must be greater than 4 megabytes. If your system had
disks less than 4 gigabytes in size in the root volume group, or was originally
installed with a version of AIX prior to Version 4.3.2, your boot logical volume
may only be 4 megabytes. You may experience this failure during
preservation or migration installations. Overwrite installations will create the
boot logical volume with a size of at minimum 8 megabytes. Only the disk
that currently contains the boot logical volume is checked for additional
partitions in order to increase the size of the boot logical volume.

IF space is not there an allocated, I have seen many a migration fail.
------------------------------------

make manual printouts of your sendmail.cf files (since you will have to manually merge data) same with

same with your rc files...just in case (if you made changes)
#usrck -n ALL
#grpck -n ALL
#lslpp -l|grep BROKEN

make sure you have the firmware and microcode updated first


Good Luck.... We have done tons of migrations from 4.1 to 4.3....and have had minimal problems....just make sure you have good backups of everything and enough space and all patches applied.....