Dynamic Root Disk Frequently Asked Questions HP Part Number: 5900-1080 Published: August 2010 Edition: 1.
© Copyright 2010 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Confidential computer software. Valid license from HP required for possession, use or copying. Consistent with FAR 12.211 and 12.212, Commercial Computer Software, Computer Software Documentation, and Technical Data for Commercial Items are licensed to the U.S. Government under vendor's standard commercial license. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
About This Document This document includes frequently asked questions about Dynamic Root Disk. Intended Audience This document is intended for system and network administrators responsible for installing, configuring, and managing HP-UX servers and workstations. Administrators are assumed to have an in-depth knowledge of HP-UX operating system concepts, commands, and configuration.
This list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) is created by the DRD engineering team. These FAQs are compiled periodically as input dictates. We invite your questions! If you have questions, contact HP Support at 1 (800) 633-3600. Dynamic Root Disk FAQ categories are as follows: » 1. General » 2. Using Dynamic Root Disk Commands » 3. Troubleshooting Dynamic Root Disk Frequently Asked Questions 1- General 1-1. What is DRD? 1-2. What HP-UX releases will DRD run on? 1-3.
top 1-3. Q: How can I modify the inactive system image without affecting the active system image? A: By only using DRD commands to modify the inactive system image. DRD commands are specially designed to create the inactive system image and modify only that image. top 1-4. Q: How can I be sure that the clone is a consistent system if the original system is still active? A: Choose a time to create the system clone when the booted system is fairly quiet.
top 1-9. Q: What if the DRD contains more than one disk? Does DRD handle this? A: Currently, the target disk must be a single physical disk, or SAN LUN, large enough to hold all of the root volume file systems. This allows a customer to clone the root volume group even if it is spread across multiple disks. Note that this is a one-way, many-to-one operation. top 1-10. Q: Can DRD clone all the partitions; s1, s2, & s3? A: All partitions are created and s1 and s2 are copied.
1-13. Q: If swconfig is not supported by DRD, and swinstall runs swconfig, will it work properly? A: DRD defers the configuration part of an install operation, which remains inactive until the system image is booted. (This behavior is similar to what happens when kernel software is installed.) top 1-14. Q: Does the cloned root disk (VG) contain same VGID as the original root VG? A: The volume group will be vg00 when the clone is booted. It will have a different minor number than the original vg00. top 1-15.
For more information about DRD-unsafe patches, see the Dynamic Root Disk: Quick Start and Best Practices white paper at http://www.hp.com/go/drd-docs. top 1-23. Q:What are the DRD considerations for legacy Device Special Files (DSFs)? A: Due to system calls DRD depends on, DRD expects legacy Device Special Files (DSFs) to be present and the legacy naming model to be enabled on HP-UX 11i v3 (11.31) servers. HP recommends only partial migration to persistent DSFs be performed.
top 2-4. Q: If I am running multiple drd runcmd operations, can I avoid mounting and unmounting the inactive system image for each runcmd execution? A: You can avoid multiple mounts and unmounts by using drd mount to mount the inactive system image before the first runcmd operation and drd umount to unmount the inactive system image after the last runcmd operation.
uname -a Look at the contents of the log files under /var/opt/drd. It may be helpful to have the data for the entire session. In DRD log files, sessions are delineated with ========. If there is too much data in the log, locate the first sign of trouble and the next several error messages.) Make available information from the swagent.log files stored in depots (for example, /var/spool/sw/swagent.log).
