How it Works
HP
Loading...
Dynamic Root Disk
Administrator's Guide
75 pgs921.02 Kb1
White Paper
25 pgs450.19 Kb0
Getting Started Guide
40 pgs1.3 Mb0
Table of contents
Loading...

HP Dynamic Root Disk Administrator's Guide

Dynamic Root Disk A.3.10.* Administrator's Guide

HP-UX 11i v2, HP-UX 11i v3
HP Part Number: 5900-2100 Published: January 2012 Edition: 1.0
© Copyright 2012 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. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. Revision History
Publication DateSupported Operating SystemsDRD VersionDocument Part Number
A.3.10.*5900-2100
January 2012HP-UX 11i v2
HP-UX 11i v3

Table of Contents

1 About Dynamic Root Disk............................................................................7
1.1 Conceptual overview............................................................................................................7
1.2 Terminology.......................................................................................................................7
1.3 Commands overview...........................................................................................................7
1.4 Downloading and installing Dynamic Root Disk ......................................................................8
2 Cloning the active system image...................................................................9
2.1 The active system image.......................................................................................................9
2.2 Locating disks....................................................................................................................9
2.2.1 Locating disks on HP-UX 11i v2 systems...........................................................................9
2.2.2 Locating disks on HP-UX 11i v3 Integrity systems............................................................10
2.3 Choosing a target disk......................................................................................................12
2.4 Using other utilities to determine disk availability..................................................................12
2.5 Using DRD for limited disk availability checks.......................................................................12
2.6 Using drd clone to analyze disk size...............................................................................13
2.7 Creating the clone............................................................................................................13
2.8 Adding or removing a disk................................................................................................16
3 Updating and maintaining software on the clone..........................................17
3.1 DRD-Safe commands and Packages.....................................................................................17
3.2 Updating and managing patches with drd runcmd............................................................18
3.2.1 DRD-Safe patches and the drd_unsafe_patch_list file............................................18
3.2.2 Patches with special installation instructions...................................................................19
3.3 Updating and managing products with drd runcmd ..........................................................19
3.4 Special considerations for firmware patches.........................................................................19
3.5 Restrictions on update-ux and sw* commands invoked by drd runcmd..............................19
3.6 Viewing logs....................................................................................................................20
4 Accessing the inactive system image...........................................................21
4.1 Mounting the inactive system image.....................................................................................21
4.2 Performing administrative tasks on the inactive system image..................................................22
4.3 Unmounting the inactive system image.................................................................................24
5 Synchronizing the inactive clone image with the booted system......................27
5.1 Overview.........................................................................................................................27
5.2 Quick start—basic synchronization......................................................................................27
5.3 The drd sync command......................................................................................................28
5.3.1 Determining the list of files in the booted volume group...................................................28
5.3.2 Trimming the list of files to be synchronized...................................................................28
5.3.3 Copying the files to the inactive clone image................................................................30
5.4 Using the drd sync preview to determine divergence of the clone from the booted system........30
5.5 drd sync system shutdown script......................................................................................31
6 Activating the inactive system image...........................................................33
6.1 Preparing the inactive system image to activate later..............................................................33
6.2 Undoing activation of the inactive system image...................................................................35
Table of Contents 3
7 Rehosting and unrehosting systems..............................................................39
7.1 Rehosting overview............................................................................................................39
7.2 Rehosting examples...........................................................................................................39
7.3 Rehosting a mirrored image................................................................................................40
7.4 Unrehosting overview........................................................................................................41
8 Troubleshooting DRD................................................................................43
9 Support and other resources......................................................................45
9.1 Contacting HP...................................................................................................................45
9.2 New and changed information in this edition.......................................................................46
9.3 Locating this guide............................................................................................................46
9.4 Related information...........................................................................................................46
9.5 Typographic conventions....................................................................................................46
A DRD commands.......................................................................................49
A.1 DRD command syntax.......................................................................................................49
A.1.1 The drd activate command...................................................................................49
A.1.2 The drd clone command.........................................................................................51
A.1.3 The drd deactivate command...............................................................................54
A.1.4 The drd mount command.........................................................................................55
A.1.5 The drd rehost command.......................................................................................57
A.1.6 The drd runcmd command.......................................................................................60
A.1.7 The drd status command.......................................................................................62
A.1.8 The drd sync command..........................................................................................64
A.1.9 The drd umount command.......................................................................................65
A.1.10 The drd unrehost command..................................................................................67
Glossary....................................................................................................71
Index.........................................................................................................73
4 Table of Contents
List of Figures
2-1 Preparing to Clone the Active System Image........................................................................13
2-2 Cloning the Active System Image.......................................................................................14
2-3 Disk Configurations After Cloning......................................................................................15
6-1 Disk Configurations After Activating the Inactive System Image...............................................33
5
List of Examples
2-1 The ioscan -fnkC disk command output on an HP-UX 11i v2 PA-RISC system...................10
2-2 The ioscan -fnkC disk command output on an HP-UX 11i v2 Integrity system....................10
2-3 The ioscan -fNnkC disk command output on an HP-UX 11i v3 Integrity system..................11
2-4 The ioscan -m dsf command output on an HP-UX 11i v3 Integrity system...........................11
2-5 drd clone preview example on HP-UX 11i v2 or 11i v3......................................................13
2-6 drd clone preview example on HP-UX 11i v3 (using agile DSF)...........................................13
2-7 The drd clone command output....................................................................................15
2-8 The drd clone command output for SAN disk..................................................................16
2-9 The drd status command output for SAN disk.................................................................16
4-1 The drd mount command output.....................................................................................22
4-2 The bdf command output.................................................................................................22
4-3 Checking a warning message............................................................................................23
4-4 Creating a patch install file...............................................................................................23
4-5 Editing symlinked files.......................................................................................................24
4-6 The drd umount command output...................................................................................24
5-1 drd sync scenario.........................................................................................................27
6-1 Booting the primary boot disk with an alternate boot disk (HP-UX 11i v2)................................35
6-2 Using drd deactivate after activating — legacy DSF.............................................................36
6-3 Using drd deactivate after activating — agile DSF................................................................37
7-1 Provisioning a new system.................................................................................................40
7-2 Updating a system to an existing system's maintenance level.................................................40
A-1 File system mount points....................................................................................................56
6 List of Examples

1 About Dynamic Root Disk

1.1 Conceptual overview

This document describes the Dynamic Root Disk (DRD) toolset, which you can use to perform software maintenance and recovery on an HP-UX operating system with minimum system downtime. DRD enables you to easily and safely clone a system image from a root disk to another disk on the same system and modify the image without shutting down the system. DRD significantly reduces system downtime and allows you to do software maintenance during normal business hours. This document is primarily for HP-UX system administrators who apply software maintenance on HP-UX systems, such as installing new software product revisions, as well as updating from an older HP-UX operating environment (OE) to a newer one. Some understanding of HP-UX system administration is assumed.
Hewlett-Packard developed DRD to minimize the usual maintenance window during which you shut down the system to apply software maintenance. With DRD, the system keeps running while you clone the system image and apply software maintenance to the cloned image. DRD tools can manage the two system images simultaneously. DRD also provides a fail-safe mechanism for returning the system to its original state, if necessary.
Using DRD commands, you can perform software maintenance or make other modifications on the cloned system image without affecting the active system image. When ready, you can boot the cloned image on either the original system or a different system. The only downtime required for this process is while the system reboots.
Other uses of DRD include using the clone for quick software recovery or using the clone to boot another system, which is referred to as rehosting. For details of rehosting, see Rehosting and
unrehosting systems.

1.2 Terminology

In this guide, “root group” refers to the LVM volume group or VxVM disk group that contains the root (“/”) file system. The term “logical volume” refers to an LVM logical volume or a VxVM volume.
IMPORTANT: DRD supports the following LVM root volume group versions:
• DRD A.3.5.* and earlier: — HP-UX 11i v2: LVM 1.0 — HP-UX 11i v3: LVM 1.0
• DRD A.3.6.* and later: — HP-UX 11i v2: LVM 1.0 — HP-UX 11i v3: LVM 1.0 and LVM 2.2

1.3 Commands overview

The drd command provides a command line interface to DRD tools. The drd command has nine major modes of operation:
• activate After using the DRD commands to create and optionally modify a clone, using drd activate invokes setboot(1M) and sets the primary boot path to the clone. After the clone is booted, using drd activate invokes setboot(1M) to set the primary boot path to the original system image. The drd activate command always sets the primary boot path to the inactive (not booted) system image.
• clone Clones a booted system to an inactive system image. The drd clone mode copies the LVM volume group or VxVM disk group, containing the volume on which the root file system (“/”) is mounted, to the target disk specified in the command.
1.1 Conceptual overview 7
• deactivate If the drd activate command (which invokes setboot(1M)) has previously
been utilized and set the clone as the primary boot path, but the system has not yet been rebooted, the drd deactivate command can be used to “undo” the drd activate command. That is, the drd deactivate command will set the original system image to be the primary boot path. The drd deactivate command always sets the primary boot path to the active (currently booted) system image.
• mount Mounts all file systems in an inactive system image. The mount point of the root file
system is either /var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_000 or /var/opt/drd/mnts/ sysimage_001. If the inactive system image was created by the most recent drd clone command, the mount point of the root file system is /var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_001. If the inactive system image was the booted system when the most recent drd clone command was run, the mount point of the root file system is /var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_000.
• rehost Copies the specified system information file—containing hostname, IP address, and
other system-specific information—to EFI/HPUX/SYSINFO.TXT on the disk to be rehosted.
• runcmd Runs a command on an inactive system image. Only a select group of commands
may be run by the runcmd mode. These are commands that have been verified to have no effect on the booted system when executed by drd runcmd. Such commands are referred to as DRD-safe. The commands kctune, swinstall, swjob, swlist, swmodify, swremove, swverify, update-ux, and view are currently certified DRD-safe. An attempt to execute any other command will result in a runcmd error. In addition, not every software package may safely be processed by the sw* and update-ux commands. The DRD-safe update-ux and SW-DIST commands are aware of running in a DRD session and will reject any unsafe packages. For more information about DRD-safe packages, see drd-runcmd(1M).
NOTE: The drd runcmd command suppresses all reboots. The option -x autoreboot is ignored when an swinstall, swremove, or update-ux command is executed by drd runcmd.
• status Displays (system-specific) status information about the original disk and the clone
disk, including which disk is currently booted and which disk is activated (that is, the disk that will be booted when the system is restarted).
• sync Propagates file system changes from the booted original system to the inactive clone
image.
• umount Unmounts all file systems in the inactive system image previously mounted by a drd
mount command.
• unrehost Removes the system information file, EFI/HPUX/SYSINFO.TXT, from a disk that
was rehosted, optionally preserving a copy in a file system on the booted system.
For details of DRD commands syntax, including all options and extended options, see DRD
commands.

1.4 Downloading and installing Dynamic Root Disk

For up-to-date detailed instructions about downloading and installing the DRD product, see https://
h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayInstallInfo.do?productNumber=DynRootDisk.
NOTE: 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. For details of migration to persistent DSFs, see theHP-UX 11i v3 Persistent DSF Migration Guide.
NOTE: On VxVM configurations, DRD expects OS Native Naming (osn) to be enabled. Enclosure Based Naming (ebn) must be turned off.
8 About Dynamic Root Disk

2 Cloning the active system image

This chapter describes how to use the drd clone command to clone the active system image. It also describes where the cloned image is saved.
NOTE: You must be logged in as root to use any DRD command.

2.1 The active system image

The drd clone command creates a bootable disk that is a copy of the volume group containing the root file system (/). The source of the drd clone command is the LVM volume group or VxVM disk group containing the root (/) and boot (/stand) file systems. For a system with an LVM root, the source does not need to reside on a single physical disk. For a system with a VxVM root, all volumes in the root disk group must reside on every physical disk in the root group. Thus, each disk must be a mirror of every other disk. The target must be a single physical disk large enough to hold all volumes in the root group. In addition, a mirror for the target may be specified. For more details, see the Dynamic Root Disk and MirrorDisk/UX white paper, available at http://
www.hp.com/go/drd-docs.
Because the drd clone operation clones a single group, systems with file systems to be patched must not reside in multiple volume groups. (For example, if /stand resides in vg00 and /var resides in vg01, the system is not appropriate for DRD.)
For additional information about source and target disks, see the drd-clone (1M) manpage (man drd-clone) and the Dynamic Root Disk: Quick Start & Best Practices white paper, available at
http://www.hp.com/go/drd-docs.
NOTE:
After creating a DRD clone, your system has two system images—the original and the cloned image. Throughout this document, the system image that is currently in use is called the active system image. The image that is not in use is called the inactive system image.

2.2 Locating disks

The target of a drd clone operation must be a single disk or SAN LUN that is write-accessible to the system and not currently in use. Depending on your HP-UX operating system, refer to one of the following sections:
• Locating Disks on HP-UX 11i v2
• Locating Disks on HP-UX 11i v3

2.2.1 Locating disks on HP-UX 11i v2 systems

To help find and select the target disk on an HP-UX 11i v2 system, you can find out what disks are on the system with the ioscan command:
# /usr/sbin/ioscan -fnkC disk
The ioscan command displays a list of system disks with identifying information, location, and size. On a PA-RISC system, the output looks similar to Example 2-1.
2.1 The active system image 9
Example 2-1 The ioscan -fnkC disk command output on an HP-UX 11i v2 PA-RISC system
# /usr/sbin/ioscan -fnkC disk
Class I H/W Path Driver S/W State H/W Type Description ======================================================================= disk 0 10/0/14/0.0.0 sdisk CLAIMED DEVICE TEAC CD-532E-B /dev/dsk/c0t0d0 /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0 disk 1 10/0/15/1.5.0 sdisk CLAIMED DEVICE HP 18.2GMAN3184MC /dev/dsk/c1t2d0 /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0 disk 2 10/0/15/1.6.0 sdisk CLAIMED DEVICE HP 18.2GMAN3184MC /dev/dsk/c2t3d0 /dev/rdsk/c2t3d0
On an Integrity system, the output looks similar to Example 2-2.
Example 2-2 The ioscan -fnkC disk command output on an HP-UX 11i v2 Integrity system
# /usr/sbin/ioscan -fnkC disk
Class I H/W Path Driver S/W State H/W Type Description ============================================================================ disk 0 0/0/2/0.0.0.0 sdisk CLAIMED DEVICE TEAC DV-28E-N /dev/dsk/c0t0d0 /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0 disk 1 0/1/1/0.0.0 sdisk CLAIMED DEVICE HP 36.4GST336754LC /dev/dsk/c2t0d0 /dev/dsk/c2t0d0s3 /dev/rdsk/c2t0d0s2 /dev/dsk/c2t0d0s1 /dev/rdsk/c2t0d0 /dev/rdsk/c2t0d0s3 /dev/dsk/c2t0d0s2 /dev/rdsk/c2t0d0s1 disk 2 0/1/1/0.1.0 sdisk CLAIMED DEVICE HP 36.4GST336754LC /dev/dsk/c2t1d0 /dev/dsk/c2t1d0s3 /dev/rdsk/c2t1d0s2 /dev/dsk/c2t1d0s1 /dev/rdsk/c2t1d0 /dev/rdsk/c2t1d0s3 /dev/dsk/c2t1d0s2 /dev/rdsk/c2t1d0s1
IMPORTANT:
The above output includes block device special files ending with s1, s2, or s3. These endings indicate an idisk partition on the disk. Do NOT use a partition as a clone target!
The first disk in the above list is a DVD drive, indicated by the DV in the description field. Do NOT use a DVD as a clone target!
Some device files are identified as /dev/rdsk/. . . following the block device special file designation. This identifies them as raw files. Do NOT use a raw file as a clone target!
If you have recently added a disk to your system you may need to run ioscan without the -k option to display the new disk. See the ioscan(1M) manpage for more information about ioscan options.

2.2.2 Locating disks on HP-UX 11i v3 Integrity systems

To help find and select the target disk on an Integrity system running HP-UX 11i v3 (11.31), you can find out what disks are on the system with the ioscan command:
# /usr/sbin/ioscan -fNnkC disk
The ioscan command displays a list of system disks with identifying information, location, and size. On an Integrity system running HP-UX 11i v3, the output looks similar to Example 2-3.
10 Cloning the active system image
Example 2-3 The ioscan -fNnkC disk command output on an HP-UX 11i v3 Integrity system
# /usr/sbin/ioscan -fNnkC disk
Class I H/W Path Driver S/W State H/W Type Description =================================================================== disk 4 64000/0xfa00/0x0 esdisk CLAIMED DEVICE HP 36.4GMAN3367MC /dev/disk/disk4 /dev/rdisk/disk4 /dev/disk/disk4_p1 /dev/rdisk/disk4_p1 /dev/disk/disk4_p2 /dev/rdisk/disk4_p2 /dev/disk/disk4_p3 /dev/rdisk/disk4_p3 disk 5 64000/0xfa00/0x1 esdisk CLAIMED DEVICE HP 36.4GMAN3367MC /dev/disk/disk5 /dev/rdisk/disk5 /dev/disk/disk5_p1 /dev/rdisk/disk5_p1 /dev/disk/disk5_p2 /dev/rdisk/disk5_p2 /dev/disk/disk5_p3 /dev/rdisk/disk5_p3 disk 6 64000/0xfa00/0x2 esdisk CLAIMED DEVICE HP 36.4GMAN3367MC /dev/disk/disk6 /dev/rdisk/disk6 /dev/disk/disk6_p1 /dev/rdisk/disk6_p1 /dev/disk/disk6_p2 /dev/rdisk/disk6_p2 /dev/disk/disk6_p3 /dev/rdisk/disk6_p3 disk 7 64000/0xfa00/0x3 esdisk CLAIMED DEVICE TEAC DW-28E /dev/disk/disk7 /dev/rdisk/disk7
IMPORTANT:
The above output includes block device special files ending with _p1, _p2, or _p3. These endings indicate an idisk partition on the disk. Do NOT use a partition as a clone target!
The last disk in the above list is a DVD drive, indicated by the DW in the description field. Do NOT use a DVD as a clone target!
Some device files are identified as /dev/rdisk following the block device special file designation. This identifies them as raw files. Do NOT use a raw file as a clone target!
Additionally, on HP-UX 11i v3 Integrity systems, you may find it useful to use the following ioscan command to identify persistent and legacy DSFs:
Example 2-4 The ioscan -m dsf command output on an HP-UX 11i v3 Integrity system
# /usr/sbin/ioscan -m dsf
Persistent DSF Legacy DSF(s) ========================================== /dev/rdisk/disk4 /dev/rdsk/c2t0d0 /dev/rdisk/disk4_p1 /dev/rdsk/c2t0d0s1 /dev/rdisk/disk4_p2 /dev/rdsk/c2t0d0s2 /dev/rdisk/disk4_p3 /dev/rdsk/c2t0d0s3 /dev/rdisk/disk5 /dev/rdsk/c2t1d0 /dev/rdisk/disk5_p1 /dev/rdsk/c2t1d0s1 /dev/rdisk/disk5_p2 /dev/rdsk/c2t1d0s2 /dev/rdisk/disk5_p3 /dev/rdsk/c2t1d0s3 /dev/rdisk/disk6 /dev/rdsk/c3t2d0 /dev/rdisk/disk6_p1 /dev/rdsk/c3t2d0s1 /dev/rdisk/disk6_p2 /dev/rdsk/c3t2d0s2 /dev/rdisk/disk6_p3 /dev/rdsk/c3t2d0s3 /dev/rdisk/disk7 /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0
For additional information about LVM volume group configurations from legacy to the agile naming model, see the LVM Migration from Legacy to Agile Naming Model HP-UX 11i v3 white paper.
2.2 Locating disks 11

2.3 Choosing a target disk

CAUTION: It is the system administrator's responsibility to identify a target disk that is not currently in use! Cloning a disk removes all current data on the target disk.
In Example 2-1, the disk with the active system image is /dev/dsk/c2t3d0. You need to choose a free disk to be the target of the drd clone command. Your system may have many more disks than Example 2-1 shows.
The target disk must:
• Be a block device special file.
• Be writeable by the system.
• Not currently be in use by other applications.
• Be large enough to hold a copy of each logical volume in the root group. The target's physical disk need not be as large as the disk allocated for the root group, as long
as there is enough space for a copy of each logical volume in the root group. However, the disk needs to be larger than the used space in each logical volume because each logical volume will be created with the number of physical extents currently allocated to the corresponding root group logical volume.
Example 2-1 shows three system disks: /dev/dsk/c0t0d0, /dev/dsk/c1t2d0, and /dev/
dsk/c2t3d0. You need to determine which disks are available and large enough.

2.4 Using other utilities to determine disk availability

You can determine which disks are in use with the lvm(7M) (Logical Volume Manager) and VxVM (Veritas Volume Manager) commands. For example, to see which disks are in use by lvm, enter this command:
# /usr/sbin/vgdisplay -v | /usr/bin/more
and look in the output for PV Name, which describes physical volumes. This information is under the Physical Volumes heading. It looks similar to this:
--- Physical Volumes --- PV Name /dev/dsk/c2t3d0 PV Status available Total PE 4340 Free PE 428 Autoswitch On
You can use the vxdisk -o alldgs list command to display information about all disks managed by VxVM. Do not specify any disk in use by VxVM as a clone target.
The swapinfo command can be used to display information about disks currently used for swap. The HP System Management Homepage, hpsmh(1M), or System Administration Manager, sam(1M),
can be used to investigate the disks on the system and their current usage.

2.5 Using DRD for limited disk availability checks

You can use drd clone with the -p option to get minimal availability information about a disk. (See the following section for an example.)
The drd clone command performs the following checks:
12 Cloning the active system image
• If the disk is currently in use by the LVM Manager, it is rejected by the drd clone operation.
• If the disk is currently in use by the VxVM Manager, it will be accepted only if the following two conditions are met:
— The disk is an inactive image managed by DRD — The extended option -x overwrite=true is specified on the drd clone command
• If the disk is not currently in use by LVM or VxVM, but contains LVM, VxVM, or boot records, it is only accepted as a drd clone target if -x overwrite=true is specified on the drd clone command.
NOTE: A selected target disk will not be overwritten if it is part of the root volume. However, the drd clone command will overwrite swap or raw data disks because it does not detect this type of usage. For example, any raw disks in use by databases would be overwritten if given as the target clone disk.

2.6 Using drd clone to analyze disk size

A simple way to determine if a disk is large enough for a DRD clone is to run drd clone in preview mode:
Example 2-5 drd clone preview example on HP-UX 11i v2 or 11i v3
# /opt/drd/bin/drd clone –p –v –t /dev/dsk/cxtxdx
Example 2-6 drd clone preview example on HP-UX 11i v3 (using agile DSF)
# /opt/drd/bin/drd clone –p –v –t /dev/disk/diskn
The preview operation includes disk space analysis that shows whether a target disk is large enough. If you prefer to investigate disk sizes before previewing the clone, you can use the diskinfo command.

2.7 Creating the clone

After determining that sufficient disk space exists and that the target disk contains no data you want to keep, you are ready to run the drd clone command. Figure 2-1 illustrates the content of the active system disk and the clone target disk before cloning happens.
Figure 2-1 Preparing to Clone the Active System Image
2.6 Using drd clone to analyze disk size 13
Use the following command to clone the system image, substituting your target disk identifier for the one shown in the command:
# /opt/drd/bin/drd clone -v -x overwrite=true -t /dev/dsk/c1t2d0
On HP-UX 11i v3 systems, you can also use the agile device file to the target disk, substituting your target disk identifier for the one shown in the following command:
# /opt/drd/bin/drd clone -v -x overwrite=true -t /dev/disk/disk10
NOTE: For descriptions of the drd clone command, see The drd clone command.
The -x option lets you choose whether to overwrite data on the target disk. The -x
overwrite=true option tells the command to overwrite any data on the disk. The -x overwrite=false option tells the command not to write the cloned image if the disk appears
to contain LVM, VxVM, or boot records. The default value is false. Cloning creates an inactive system image on the target disk at /dev/dsk/c1t2d0. Figure 2-2
shows the active system image being cloned to the target disk.
NOTE: The drd clone command does not write over a disk that is part of the root volume.
Figure 2-2 Cloning the Active System Image
The output you see as this command runs is similar to Example 2-7. When you see the message, Copying File Systems to New System Image, the active
system image is being cloned. This operation can take quite a while, and you see no more messages until the file systems have been copied.
14 Cloning the active system image
Example 2-7 The drd clone command output
======= 12/01/06 11:07:28 MST BEGIN Clone System Image (user=root) (jobid=drdtest2)
* Reading Current System Information * Selecting System Image To Clone * Selecting Target Disk * Selecting Volume Manager For New System Image * Analyzing For System Image Cloning * Creating New File Systems * Copying File Systems To New System Image * Making New System Image Bootable * Unmounting New System Image Clone * System image: "sysimage_001" on disk "/dev/dsk/c1t2d0"
======= 12/01/06 11:38:19 MST END Clone System Image succeeded. (user=root) (jobid=drdtest2)
Figure 2-3 shows the two disks after cloning. Both disks contain the system image. The image on
the target disk is the inactive system image. The DRD clone operation will have some impact on the booted system's I/O resources, particularly
if the source disk is on the same SCSI chain as the target disk. DRD's performance is similar to system performance when using Ignite to create recovery images, which many system administrators find acceptable.
Figure 2-3 Disk Configurations After Cloning
After running drd clone, you have identical system images on the system disk and the target disk. The image on the system disk is the active system image. The image on the target disk is the inactive system image.
The drd clone command returns the following values:
0 Success
1 Error
2 Warning
For more details, you can examine messages written to the log file at /var/opt/drd/drd.log. Here is an example of creating a clone from a HP-UX 11i v3 system to a storage area network
(SAN) disk. First, Example 2-8 displays the output of the following drd clone command:
# /opt/drd/bin/drd clone -t /dev/disk/disk14 -x overwrite=true
2.7 Creating the clone 15
Example 2-8 The drd clone command output for SAN disk
======= 06/24/08 11:55:58 MDT BEGIN Clone System Image (user=root) (jobid=drdtest14)
* Reading Current System Information * Selecting System Image To Clone * Selecting Target Disk * The disk "/dev/disk/disk14" contains data which will be overwritten. * Selecting Volume Manager For New System Image * Analyzing For System Image Cloning * Creating New File Systems * Copying File Systems To New System Image * Making New System Image Bootable * Unmounting New System Image Clone
======= 06/24/08 12:06:00 MDT END Clone System Image succeeded. (user=root) (jobid=drdtest14)
Next, the drd status command is executed to verify the clone disk and the original disk. Example
2-9 displays the output of the following drd status command:
# /opt/drd/bin/drd status
Example 2-9 The drd status command output for SAN disk
======= 06/24/08 12:09:46 MDT BEGIN Displaying DRD Clone Image Information (user=root) (jobid=drdtest14)
* Clone Disk: /dev/disk/disk14 * Clone EFI Partition: AUTO file present, Boot loader present, SYSINFO.TXT not present * Clone Creation Date: 06/24/08 11:56:18 MDT * Clone Mirror Disk: None * Mirror EFI Partition: None * Original Disk: /dev/disk/disk15 * Original EFI Partition: AUTO file present, Boot loader present, SYSINFO.TXT not present * Booted Disk: Original Disk (/dev/disk/disk15) * Activated Disk: Original Disk (/dev/disk/disk15)
======= 06/24/08 12:10:01 MDT END Displaying DRD Clone Image Information succeeded. (user=root) (jobid=drdtest14)
NOTE: The elapsed time of the clone creation will vary, depending on the size of the root disk, independent of whether it's going to a SAN or an internal disk.

2.8 Adding or removing a disk

After creating a clone, you can remove it or the original system image from the system. For example, if may need to boot the image on different hardware (See Rehosting and unrehosting systems) or need disk storage for use on another system.
After you remove an image from the system, DRD operations other than clone will fail. In addition, if a VxVM image is removed from the system without updating the VxVM metadata, the drd clone command will also fail. The inactive image disk group is still present which prevents it from being recreated, but the disk residing in it is missing. This prevents DRD from recognizing it as a disk group in use by DRD.
To remove the disk group and enable future drd clonecommands, determine the VxVM disk group of the inactivate image as follows:
• If the booted group does NOT begin with the “drd_” prefix the booted group name with “drd_” to determine the inactive image disk group.
OR
• If the booted group DOES begin with “drd_” remove the “drd_” prefix to determine the inactive image disk group. Issue the command “vxdg deport <inactive image disk group>”.
16 Cloning the active system image

3 Updating and maintaining software on the clone

After cloning the active system image, you can use drd runcmd to run a limited set of commands and to apply patches to the inactive system image. This chapter describes this process.
For details of the drd runcmd command, including available options and extended options, see
The drd runcmd command.
NOTE: You must be logged in as root to run any DRD command.

3.1 DRD-Safe commands and Packages

The drd runcmd operation runs a command on the inactive system image that does not make any changes to the booted system, the running kernel, or the process space. This enables a system administrator to make changes to the inactive system image without incurring any disruption to the currently booted system.
NOTE: The drd runcmd command suppresses all reboots. The option -x autoreboot is ignored when a swinstall, swremove, or update-ux command is executed by drd runcmd.
Not all commands can safely be executed by the drd runcmd operation. For example, commands that start or stop daemons or change dynamic kernel tuneables are disruptive to current processes and must be prevented by the drd runcmd operation.
Restrictions on commands executed by drd runcmd are:
• When calling swinstall and update-ux, drd runcmd supports installation from directory depots on the booted system and on remote servers. Note that installing from serial depots or from depots on the inactive system image is not supported.
• drd runcmd can also be used to swlist, swverify, swremove, and swmodify software that is installed on the inactive image. It cannot be used to list or modify any depot's contents. Using these commands outside of drd runcmd allows for depot listing and management.
Commands that are not disruptive to the booted system and perform appropriate actions on the inactive system are known as DRD-safe. For this release of DRD, a short list of commands is recognized by the drd runcmd operation to be DRD-safe. An attempt to use DRD to run commands that are not DRD-safe will terminate with an ERROR return code without executing the command.
A number of Software Distributor commands have been made safe at a sufficient maintenance level of SW-DIST. The DRD product has a package co-requisite on a minimum release of SW-DIST. (For details of the DRD product dependencies, see the following webpage: https://
h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/ displayInstallInfo.do?productNumber=DynRootDisk#download.)
Similarly, drd runcmd update-ux includes a run-time check for the revision of SWManager (SWM), which provides DRD-safe tools used during the update. This functionality supports updates on the clone from an older version of HP-UX 11i v3 to HP-UX 11i v3 update 4 or later. (For details of the DRD product dependencies, see the following webpage: https://h20392.www2.hp.com/
portal/swdepot/displayInstallInfo.do?productNumber=DynRootDisk#download.)
The DRD-safe commands are the following:
• swinstall
• swremove
• swlist
• swmodify
• swverify
• swjob
3.1 DRD-Safe commands and Packages 17
• kctune
• update-ux
• view
• kcmodule
• kconfig
• mk_kernel
• swm job See the Software Distributor Administrator's Guide, located at http://www.hp.com/go/sd-docs,
as well as swinstall(1M), swremove(1M), swlist(1M), swmodify(1M), swverify(1M), swjob(1M), kctune(1M), update-ux(1M), view(1M), kcmodule(1M), kconfig(1M), mk_kernel(1M), and swm(1M) for additional information about these commands.
The DRD-safe commands may be specified by their base names, such as swinstall or swremove, or their full paths, such as /usr/sbin/swinstall or /usr/sbin/swremove. However, paths that are symlinks to the DRD-safe commands are not supported.
If the inactive system image has not been mounted, the drd runcmd operation mounts it, executes the DRD-safe command, and then unmounts it. If the inactive system image is already mounted, the drd runcmd operation leaves it mounted.
When swinstall, swremove, and update-ux are used to manage software packages, SD control scripts included in the packages—such as pre-install, post-remove, and update-prep scripts—are executed. For management of such packages to be DRD-safe, the control scripts must not take any action that will affect the booted system. (The configure scripts are not executed.) A package satisfying this restriction is also known as DRD-safe. The swlist, swmodify, and swverify commands—without -F or -x fix=true options—may be invoked by drd runcmd for arbitrary packages. The swlist and swmodify commands do not call control scripts, and verify scripts do not change the system.
When executing the drd runcmd kctune command, the kctune command outputs the prompt:
==> Update the automatic 'backup' configuration first?
If the user types y, the following error is displayed:
WARNING: The backup behavior 'yes' is not supported in alternate root environments. The behavior 'once' will be used instead.
This message can be ignored.

3.2 Updating and managing patches with drd runcmd

3.2.1 DRD-Safe patches and the drd_unsafe_patch_list file

An HP program was initiated in November 2004 to make all patches DRD-safe. Although most patches delivered after November 2004 are DRD-safe, a few are not. Patches that are not DRD-safe are listed in the file /etc/opt/drd/drd_unsafe_patch_list, which is delivered as a volatile file with the DRD product. The copy of this file on the inactive system image is used to filter patches that are selected for installation with drd runcmd.
IMPORTANT: When invoked by the drd runcmd operation, the swinstall, swremove, and update-ux commands reject any attempt to install or remove a patch included in the drd_unsafe_patch_list file on the inactive system image.
In the rare event that a new patch is determined not to be DRD-safe, a new version of the drd_unsafe_patch_list file is made available on HP’s IT Resource Center website.
To determine if you need to update the drd_unsafe_patch_list files, see the Update the drd_unsafe_patch_list File procedure in the DRD Downloads and Patches page at https://
18 Updating and maintaining software on the clone
h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/ displayInstallInfo.do?productNumber=DynRootDisk#download.
It is helpful during maintenance planning for system administrators to be able to determine which, if any, patches are not DRD-safe, and to make plans regarding these patches. See the DRD-Safe Concepts for HP-UX 11i v2 and Later white paper, located at http://www.hp.com/go/drd-docs, for information about identifying such patches and alternatives on how to manage them without using the drd runcmd operation.

3.2.2 Patches with special installation instructions

Patches may include Special Installation Instructions, or SIIs, which contain specific tasks for the user to perform when they install certain patches. If you install patches with SIIs on an inactive DRD system image, ensure the following:
• You must not stop/kill or restart any processes or daemons. Because the patch is being installed on an inactive DRD system image, these actions are not needed, and in fact could leave the running system in an undesirable state. When the inactive system image is booted, all processes are stopped and restarted.
• Only make kernel changes by executing: drd runcmd kctune

3.3 Updating and managing products with drd runcmd

For non-patch products, a new fileset-level packaging attribute, is_drd_safe, has been introduced. The value of the attribute defaults to false, so any package created before the attribute was introduced will be rejected by swinstall, swremove, and update-ux commands invoked by the drd runcmd operation. Because the DRD product was not available at the initial release of 11i v2, relatively few non-patch products have the is_drd_safe attribute set to true. For HP-UX 11i v3, however, most products will have the is_drd_safe attribute set to true.
To determine if a non-patch product can be installed or removed using drd runcmd, execute the command:
# /usr/sbin/swlist –l fileset –a is_drd_safe _product_name_
and check that all filesets have is_drd_safe set to true.

3.4 Special considerations for firmware patches

A firmware patch changes the firmware the next time the patched image is booted. Because the firmware is shared by both the active and inactive system images, there is no ability to have an unchanged copy of the firmware as a fail-safe mechanism. As a result, the benefit of DRD as a Hot Recovery mechanism cannot be provided with firmware patches. Firmware patches set the fileset attribute is_drd_safe to false to supply a checkinstall script that prevents installation in a DRD session.
IMPORTANT: System administrators need to be aware that any firmware change cannot be reversed by booting a different system image.
3.5 Restrictions on update-ux and sw* commands invoked by drd
runcmd
Options on the Software Distributor commands that can be used with drd runcmd are limited by the need to ensure that operations are DRD-safe. The restrictions include the following:
• The -F and -x fix=true options are not supported for drd runcmd swverify operations. Use of these options could result in changes to the booted system.
• The use of double quotation marks and wild card symbols (*, ?) in the command line must be escaped with a backslash character (\), as in the following example:
drd runcmd swinstall –s depot_server:/var/opt/patches \*
3.3 Updating and managing products with drd runcmd 19
• Files referenced in the command line must both: — Reside in the inactive system image — Be referenced in the DRD-safe command by the path relative to the mount point of the
inactive system image
This applies to files referenced as arguments for the -C, -f, -S, -X, and -x logfile options for an sw command run by drd runcmd and for the update-ux command -f option.
• To use update-ux with a media source or local depot, SWM version A.3.5.1 or later must be present on the clone.
See drd-runcmd(1M) for further information about restrictions on Software Distributor commands invoked by drd runcmd.

3.6 Viewing logs

When a drd runcmd operation executes a DRD-safe command, the DRD command runs on the booted system, and the DRD log, /var/opt/drd/drd.log, is created on the booted system. However, the DRD-safe command runs on the inactive system image, and its logs (if they exist), reside on the inactive system image.
Logs can be viewed on the inactive system image by using the drd runcmd view command. For example, to view the swagent log on the inactive image, execute the following command:
# /opt/drd/bin/drd runcmd view /var/adm/sw/swagent.log
For more information on viewing log files and on maintaining the integrity of system logs, see the Dynamic Root Disk: Quick Start & Best Practices white paper, located at http://www.hp.com/go/
drd-docs.
20 Updating and maintaining software on the clone

4 Accessing the inactive system image

This chapter describes how to mount and unmount the inactive system image.
IMPORTANT: If you choose to mount the inactive DRD system image, exercise caution to ensure that any actions taken do not impact the running system. You must:
• Not stop/kill or restart any processes or daemons.
• Only make kernel changes by executing: drd runcmd kctune. For example, to change the value of the maxfiles_lim kernel tunable on the inactive system image
to 8192, execute the command:
# /opt/drd/bin/drd runcmd kctune maxfiles_lim=8192
Using drd runcmd to change the value of maxfiles_lim on the inactive system image ensures that its value on the booted system is unchanged.
NOTE: Accessing the inactive system image is not always required; however, you may need to access the inactive system image prior to activating it.
You can mount DRD-cloned file systems to access them and:
• Check the logs of commands executed by drd runcmd.
• Create files on the inactive system image. In particular, you can create files that will be referenced by swinstall commands, executed by the drd runcmd command. (For an example of this type of file creation, see Example 4-4.)
• Verify the integrity of certain files on the inactive system image. If a file is known to have changed during the drd clone operation, you might want to compute a checksum on the copy of the file on the booted system and the copy on the target system to validate the clone copy.
NOTE: You must be logged in as root to run any DRD command.

4.1 Mounting the inactive system image

For details of the drd mount command, including available options and extended options, see
The drd mount command.
To mount the inactive system image, execute the drd mount command:
# /opt/drd/bin/drd mount
The command locates the inactive system image and mounts it. The output of this command is similar to Example 4-1.
4.1 Mounting the inactive system image 21
Example 4-1 The drd mount command output
# /opt/drd/bin/drd mount
======= 12/08/06 22:19:31 MST BEGIN Mount Inactive System Image (user=root) (jobid=dlkma1)
* Reading Current System Information * Locating Inactive System Image * Mounting Inactive System Image
======= 12/08/06 22:19:52 MST END Mount Inactive System Image succeeded. (user=root) (jobid=dlkma1)
The drd mount command automatically chooses the mount point for the inactive system image. If the image was created by the drd clone command, the mount point is /var/opt/drd/mnts/ sysimage_001. If the clone has been booted, drd mount mounts the original system at the mount point /var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_000. To see all mounted file systems, including those in the active and inactive system images, execute the following command:
# /usr/bin/bdf
The output of this command should look similar to Example 4-2, if the drd mount command has been executed:
Example 4-2 The bdf command output
# /usr/bin/bdf
file system kbytes used avail %used Mounted on /dev/vg00/lvol3 1048576 320456 722432 31% / /dev/vg00/lvol1 505392 43560 411288 10% /stand /dev/vg00/lvol8 3395584 797064 2580088 24% /var /dev/vg00/lvol7 4636672 1990752 2625264 43% /usr /dev/vg00/lvol4 204800 8656 194680 4% /tmp /dev/vg00/lvol6 3067904 1961048 1098264 64% /opt /dev/vg00/lvol5 262144 9320 250912 4% /home /dev/drd00/lvol3 1048576 320504 722392 31% /var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_001 /dev/drd00/lvol1 505392 43560 411288 10% /var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_001/stand /dev/drd00/lvol4 204800 8592 194680 4% /var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_001/tmp /dev/drd00/lvol5 262144 9320 250912 4% /var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_001/home /dev/drd00/lvol6 3067904 1962912 1096416 64% /var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_001/opt /dev/drd00/lvol7 4636672 1991336 2624680 43% /var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_001/usr /dev/drd00/lvol8 3395584 788256 2586968 23% /var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_001/var
In this output, file systems identified as dev/vg00/* are the active system image file systems. Those identified as /dev/drd00/* are the inactive system image file systems.

4.2 Performing administrative tasks on the inactive system image

The following examples show some tasks you can perform on the inactive system image.
22 Accessing the inactive system image
TIP: HP recommends that a clone be deployed shortly after creating and (optionally) modifying it.
Example 4-3 Checking a warning message
You verify software on the inactive system image with drd runcmd swverify and see a warning message.
Task: Find additional information about the message. To see detailed information about the warning message supplied by the swagent log, execute
the following command:
# /opt/drd/bin/drd runcmd view /var/adm/sw/swagent.log
Example 4-4 Creating a patch install file
Task: Create a file containing a list of patches to be applied to the inactive system image. You
want to use the file as the argument of a -f option in a swinstall command run by drd runcmd. Follow this procedure:
1. Mount the inactive system image:
# /opt/drd/bin/drd mount
2. Enter the patches into a file such as
/var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_001/var/opt/drd/my_patch_list
with the following commands:
a. # /usr/bin/echo “PHCO_02201” > \
/var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_001/var/opt/drd/my_patch_list
b. # /usr/bin/echo “PHCO_12134” >> \
/var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_001/var/opt/drd/my_patch_list
c. # /usr/bin/echo “PHCO_56178” >> \
/var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_001/var/opt/drd/my_patch_list
NOTE: If the inactive system image is the original system image, and not the clone, the root file system mount point is /var/opt/drd/mnts/sysimage_000.
3. Apply the patches using drd runcmd, identifying the file by its path relative to the mount point of the inactive system image root file system:
# /opt/drd/bin/drd runcmd swinstall -s patch_server:/var/opt/patch_depot \
-f /var/opt/drd/my_patch_list
NOTE: Because the inactive system image was mounted when drd runcmd was executed, it is still mounted after drd runcmd completes. You can unmount it with the following command:
# /opt/drd/bin/drd umount
4.2 Performing administrative tasks on the inactive system image 23
Loading...
+ 52 hidden pages
Buy Points How it Works FAQ Contact Us Questions and Suggestions Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Terms of Use