Updateios command updates the Virtual I/O Server to the latest maintenance level. With the release of VIOS 4.1.2.00, a significant enhancement has been introduced: support for updateios on an alternate disk. This feature is designed to improve system availability and reduce risk during updates.
Why It Matters
- High Availability: Your VIOS stays online during the update.
- Risk Reduction: Updates happen in isolation, minimizing downtime.
- Easy Recovery: Simply clean the alternate disk, original root disk stays intact.
How It Works
You can run the updateios command with a new option:
updateios -dev <Media> -install -accept -altdisk <targetDisks>
altdisk Specifies to apply the update on alternate disk(s).
targetDisks One or more colon separated list of disks which must be unused & free.
Example:
updateios -dev /home/padmin/UPDATE -install -accept -altdisk hdisk1
After the Update
Once the update completes successfully, you can change the bootlist to boot VIOS from the alternate disk by running the following command.
bootlist -m normal -o <alternate_disk#>
Recovery Steps in Case of Failure
If the update on the alternate disk fails:
- Do not change the bootlist — keep the system booting from the original disk.
- Check the console logs of updateios for any errors.
- Run
$ alt_root_vg -remove to delete the altinst_rootvg Volume Group.
- Re-run updateios after fixing the issues. Choose a different alternate disk or clean and reuse the used one. You will have to run “
$ cleandisk -f -c alternate_disk” command to clean disk to mark it as free.
Traditional vs Alternate Disk Update
|
Feature
|
Traditional Update
|
Alternate Disk Update
|
|
Risk of downtime
|
High
|
Low
|
|
Recovery complexity
|
High
|
Minimal
|
Contacting the PowerVM Team
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