Exploring DRD Rehosting in HP-UX 11i v2 and 11i v3 (July 2010)
1
Exploring DRD Rehosting in HP-UX 11i v2
and 11i v3
July 2010
Technical white paper
Table of Contents
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1
Basic rehosting .................................................................................................................................... 2
Installing required software ............................................................................................................... 2
Creating the DRD clone .................................................................................................................... 3
Creating the system information file .................................................................................................... 3
General layout of the system information file .................................................................................... 4
Using the SYSINFO_INTERACTIVE parameter .................................................................................. 4
Setting the SYSINFO_HOSTNAME parameter ................................................................................. 4
Setting other parameters for the entire system .................................................................................. 5
The SYSINFO_PROCESSED parameter............................................................................................ 5
Identifying a network interface ...................................................................................................... 6
Managing a network interface with DHCP ....................................................................................... 6
Using static parameters to configure a network interface ................................................................... 6
Additional static parameters for a network interface ......................................................................... 7
Sample system information files ...................................................................................................... 7
Using drd rehost to copy the system information file to the EFI partition ............................................. 8
Using drd status to check for EFI/HPUX/SYSINFO.TXT ................................................................... 8
Using drd unrehost to review contents of EFI/HPUX/SYSINFO.TXT ............................................... 9
Booting the image with SYSINFO.TXT on the target system ................................................................. 9
Limitations and recommendations for the initial release of drd rehost ............................................... 10
Using drd rehost to provision a new BL870C Blade with HP-UX 11i v3 ............................................... 10
Assumptions .................................................................................................................................. 10
Steps for provisioning the new Blade ................................................................................................ 11
Using drd rehost to provision Integrity VMs ...................................................................................... 19
Assumptions .................................................................................................................................. 19
Special considerations for HP-UX 11i v3 prior to Update 3 (March 2008 or earlier) .............................. 19
HP-UX 11i v2 - Special considerations .............................................................................................. 20
Special considerations for avoiding reboots of Integrity VMs ............................................................... 20
Steps for provisioning the new VM ................................................................................................... 20
Glossary ........................................................................................................................................... 29
For more information .......................................................................................................................... 30
Call to action .................................................................................................................................... 30
Introduction
With the introduction of Dynamic Root Disk (DRD) revisions B.1131.A.3.2.1949 for HP-UX 11i v3
(11.31), and the subsequent revision B.1123.A.3.3.221 for HP-UX 11i v2 (11.23), system
administrators can boot a DRD clone on a system other than the one where it was created. This
capability is referred to as rehosting and can be utilized on systems with an LVM-managed, Itanium®-
based copy of HP-UX11i v2 or 11i v3. Rehosting enables a number of new uses for DRD clones. In