Re: correct way to update AIX 4.3.3.0 to maintenance level 4330-11? (AIX newbie)

user_at_domain.invalid
Date: 02/24/05 

Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 08:16:32 -0700

gprimerib wrote:
> Sorry for the basic question, but I'm a Solaris guy trying to warm up
> to AIX. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> We have an old 7017-R86 (S80) that's running 4.3.3. I need to put it
> on EMC storage and EMC recommends that I install 'Maintenance Level
> 4330-11' first.
> Where do I get it and what's the "best practice" way to install it
> safely?
>
> Thanks in advance.
> DM
>

Heres IBM's support web page for downloading fixes and maintenance level
packages. Select pseries for the server type for your S80, the rest of
the options ought to be straight forward - it gives you some
instructions on how to tell your current level, and install tips.

http://www-912.ibm.com/eserver/support/fixes/fcgui.jsp

My preferred way of doing an upgrade like this is to use their alternate
disk installation technique where you clone your current o.s. onto
another disk, and do the upgrade to that disk - then it modifies your
bootlist to boot from the upgraded disk. You can point back to the old
disk and boot to go back to your old o.s. in case of problems as well.
You can do the upgrade this way without as much down time - just
rebooting. Otherwise, the best practice would be to have an idle system
and do the maintenance upgrade, then reboot.

My system disks (rootvg) are mirrored, and I break the mirror, then use
the previous mirror copy disk for the upgrade. Once I'm happy with the
results and running with the upgrade, I do the cleanup and re-mirror
rootvg. If you don't want to risk breaking the mirror, you can still do
it, but you'd need two unused disks (bootable) to do the clone/upgrade to.

For info on the process - if you have man pages installed...

   man alt_disk_install

To start the process, you can run from the command line, but I find it
easier to use smitty (or smit);

   smitty alt_install

You can also access it via websm

Online manuals are available for 4.3 at

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/ds_form?lang=en_US&viewset=AIX&config=/usr/share/man/info/en_US/a_doc_lib/data/base.cfg

I have problems using the search function here (works fine with the 5L
manuals) but you can check out the Install guide, chapter 10.
Also, if you look at the Reference Documentation section, it has command
references where you can look up the command.

In your spare time... here's another site with some references to AIX vs
Solaris commands/functions.

The next step is learning about NIM (Network Install Manager) to install
across the network, which is what I'm really suppose to be looking at on
here...

Good Luck - its actually a fairly easy upgrade you're looking at.

Ron
ron@colostate.edu

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