Exploring DRD Rehosting in HP-UX 11i v2 and 11i v3 (July 2010)

Creating the DRD clone

Perform the following steps to create the DRD clone:

1. Choose an LVM-managed, Itanium-based system that will be used to create the clone. This is the

source system and it must have the version of HP-UX that you want to use for the target system.

2. Identify a disk on the source system that can be moved to the target system—where the image will

be booted. This disk is the target disk. Typically, the disk is a SAN LUN that can be unpresented

from the source system (being cloned) and presented to the target system (to be booted) by

changing the port or World Wide Port Name (WWPN) zoning. Ensure that the disk is

available—that is, it is not currently in use by the source system, and the disk is large enough to

hold a copy of the root volume group of the source system. For further guidance on choosing a

target disk, see drd-clone (1M),

Dynamic Root Disk System Administrator's Guide (~1 MB

PDF), or

Dynamic Root Disk: Quick Start & Best Practices (~300 KB PDF.)

3. Issue the “drd clone” command. If the target disk was previously used for an LVM volume

group, VxVM disk group, or as a boot disk, you will need to set the overwrite option to true.

In the following example, the target disk is /dev/disk/disk10.

# drd clone –v –x overwrite=true –t /dev/disk/disk10

Caution:

The “-x overwrite=true” option should only be used if

you are sure that the disk is not currently in use.

4. (Optional) Install additional software to the clone using “drd runcmd swinstall …” or

modify kernel tunables on the clone using “drd runcmd kctune …”.

Creating the system information file

The drd clone command above produced a disk image that can be booted on a new system.

However, some system configuration information, such as hostname and IP address, must be changed

so the image can be used on the target system. The system information file contains this data, which

is needed to define the target system. The descriptions of variables specified in the file are provided

in sysinfo(4).

After the appropriate DynRootDisk software and supporting patches have been installed, a sample

system information file is available at /etc/opt/drd/default_sysinfo_file. As delivered,

the file contains a single variable assignment that will trigger interactive use of auto_parms(1M)

when a rehosted disk is booted. The file can be modified by a system administrator as desired. In

addition, the file may be renamed or copied to another location and modified because the file path is

supplied as a parameter to the "drd rehost" command. For security reasons, HP recommends that

you restrict write access to system information files.

The original, delivered version of the system information file is available at

/usr/newconfig/etc/opt/drd/default_sysinfo_file.