Migrating from HP-UX 11i v1 Virtual Partitions to a Mixed HP-UX Version Environment

Pre-Upgrade Preparation Steps

Preparing the nPartition from a Hardware and Firmware Perspective

Any migration should begin both by referring to the documents HP-UX 11i v3 Read Before Installing

or Updating, and HP-UX 11i v3 Installation and Update Guide, as well as by downloading the tool

MSCheck from http://software.hp.com. The documents specify the hardware and firmware

requirements for HP-UX 11i v3, and the tool implements many of the necessary checks.

It is possible that an upgrade will be feasible, but that downtime will be required for the entire

complex in order to update the system and/or I/O firmware. Also, it is possible that older I/O cards

will have to be replaced.

Performing Basic Preparations

Once the hardware and firmware pass the checks and it has been decided to upgrade the nPartition,

additional decisions will have to be made.

Warning:

It is critical that the nPartition as a whole boot an 11i v3 (A.05.03 or later)

vPars monitor.

If the nPartition is currently booting from a virtual partition that will not be upgraded, then the

nPartition as a whole will have to have its boot path changed. This can be done while still in vPars

mode by using the command parmodify(1M). The -b, -s, and -t options can be used to set the primary,

secondary, and alternate boot paths, respectively.

Note:

Using parmodify(1M) to reset the nPartition boot paths only works on

HP 9000 (PA-RISC) systems. If you are running HP-UX 11i v2 on HP

Integrity, you will have to go into nPars mode and run setboot(1M).

A decision must also be made as to whether to upgrade via update or “cold migration”.

• Update will require at least two steps, because you cannot update directly from HP-UX 11i v1

to 11i v3.

• “Cold migration” will require booting into nPars mode in order to give the target virtual

partition(s) new boot disks and install them with Ignite-UX.

Once all of the decisions have been made, standard upgrade preparations such as backups can be

performed.

Cold Migration Steps

This process involves shutting down all of the virtual partitions and going into nPars mode to run the

Ignite-UX process. This will require only a single reboot of the virtual partitions staying on HP-UX 11i

v1, but will keep them unavailable for the entire Ignite process (usually a couple of hours).

Preparing Virtual Partitions that are Staying on HP-UX 11i v1

Any virtual partition running HP-UX 11i v1 that will be in a Mixed OS versions environment must be

running vPars A.03.05 or later. To update from an earlier version of vPars, you must first update the

iCAP software to version 8.03 or later. Once iCAP is updated, the virtual partitions must be set to

not reboot automatically (manual mode).