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OS upgrade and Informix Server

  • 1.  OS upgrade and Informix Server

    Posted Tue January 19, 2021 02:33 PM
    Hi everyone!

    I have an Informix Server version 12.10.FC10WE running in a RHEL 6.5 machine, and we are planning to upgrade the OS version to RHEL 7.0.

    So, in order to do this OS upgrade, what would be the best option? Should I move the Informix Server to another machine and then upgrade the OS, or could I just stop the Informix Server, upgrade the OS version, and then start the Informix Server again?

    Thanks a lot,
    Celso Freitas

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    Celso Freitas
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    #Informix


  • 2.  RE: OS upgrade and Informix Server

    IBM Champion
    Posted Tue January 19, 2021 02:50 PM
    My recommendation:
    1. Take the Informix engine down to single user mode (onmode -s)
    2. Take an archive and copy the archive file to another machine for safety.
    3. Shutdown Informix (onmode -ky)
    4. Upgrade the OS
    5. Restart Informix
    If there are any problems, you can restore the engine from the archive.
    I don't expect any problems, however.

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    Art S. Kagel, President and Principal Consultant
    ASK Database Management Corp.
    www.askdbmgt.com
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  • 3.  RE: OS upgrade and Informix Server

    Posted Tue January 19, 2021 03:53 PM
    Thank you, Art!

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    Celso Freitas de Andrade
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  • 4.  RE: OS upgrade and Informix Server

    IBM Champion
    Posted Thu January 21, 2021 02:14 PM

    Also take a copy of /etc/services.

    I have seen OS upgrades reset the file back to the default without Informix entries!

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    David Williams
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  • 5.  RE: OS upgrade and Informix Server

    IBM Champion
    Posted Thu January 21, 2021 02:49 PM
    Which is good reason to always use port numbers

    Cheers
    Paul

    Paul Watson
    Oninit LLC
    +1-913-387-7529
    www.oninit.com
    Oninit®️ is a registered trademark of Oninit LLC





  • 6.  RE: OS upgrade and Informix Server

    Posted Thu January 21, 2021 03:23 PM
    Thanks for the tip, David!
    Regards

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    Celso Freitas
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  • 7.  RE: OS upgrade and Informix Server

    IBM Champion
    Posted Thu January 21, 2021 03:47 PM
    Good point David. Also take copies of kernel configuration for the same reason.

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    Art S. Kagel, President and Principal Consultant
    ASK Database Management Corp.
    www.askdbmgt.com
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  • 8.  RE: OS upgrade and Informix Server

    Posted Tue February 09, 2021 06:23 AM

    Hi Art
    Similar subject so i think no need to another topic :)

    in General when we have OS/Informix Migration , on a same server, please advice for the steps below :

    of course , according to IBM Compatibility Matrix (https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/informix-server-system-requirements#:~:text=Content&text=IBM%20Informix%20runs%20on%20most,and%20256%20MB%20of%20memory)

    0- take a full backup including also /etc/hosts services , ixbar files, oncfg files ...Etc
    1- stop Informix (onmode -ky)
    2- updrade OS
    3- upgrade Informix
    4- start informix
    5- update statistics ?

    best regards

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    John Smith
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  • 9.  RE: OS upgrade and Informix Server

    IBM Champion
    Posted Tue February 09, 2021 08:11 AM
    John:

    Pretty much, yes. Slight modifications:

    0- take a full backup including also /etc/hosts services , ixbar files, oncfg files ...Etc
    1- stop Informix (onmode -ky)
    2- updrade OS
    3- upgrade Informix -
        Best practice is to not upgrade Informix in place but to install the new release in a separate directory. Then, since BP is to use a symbolic link for INFORMIXDIR, relink that to the new release's directory, copy ONCONFIG, and ixbar files to the new $INFORMIXDIR/etc (or transfer the ONCONFIG settings to a copy of the new onconfig.std file or add any new parameters in there that were not in the onconfig.std from the older release to the copied ONCONFIG file - either way). Your sqlhosts file should be in the parent directory that holds the INFORMIXDIR link so that you don't have to copy it ever and use INFORMIXSQLHOSTS to point to its path. If you want to keep the sqlhosts file in the default location ($INFORMIXDIR/etc) then copy that from the previous release to the new one as well.
    4- start informix
    5- update statistics - Best practice is to DROP DISTRIBUTIONS in all databases for all tables then rebuild the distributions from scratch after any version upgrade. If you are using dostats you can just include the --drop-distributions option. If you want to use drive_dostats to process multiple tables in a database in parallel then use --clean-distributions instead as that option drops distributions table by table rather than via a single global command avoiding the possibility that one thread will destroy the distributions created by another thread.




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    Art S. Kagel, President and Principal Consultant
    ASK Database Management Corp.
    www.askdbmgt.com
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  • 10.  RE: OS upgrade and Informix Server

    Posted Fri January 22, 2021 06:44 PM
    Has something changed?  Or was I misinformed some time back?  We were in a similar situation, RHEL 6.5, with plans to move to RHEL 7.0.  At that time, I was told that RH did not support an in-place upgrade from 6.5 to 7.x, and that we would have to do a complete re-install of the OS, and then install/configure any software products that we wanted on that machine.

    We ended up skipping the 6.5 -> 7.x upgrade, and instead created new servers with RHEL 8.1 and newer versions of the other software that we used, so that both OS and applications were all upgraded at once.

    I only mention it here so that you may confirm that the 6.5 -> 7.0 path is actually supported now.

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    Mark Collins
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  • 11.  RE: OS upgrade and Informix Server

    Posted Mon January 25, 2021 01:53 AM
    Redhat now officially support 6.10 to 7.9 upgrades (but not cloud images, AWS, Azure etc)

    https://access.redhat.com/solutions/637583

    The upgrade process handles only the following package groups and packages: Minimal (@minimal), Base (@base), Web Server (@web-server), DHCP Server, File Server (@nfs-server), CIFS File Server and Print Server (@print-server). Although upgrades of other packages and groups are not supported, in some cases, packages can be uninstalled from the RHEL 6 system and reinstalled on the upgraded RHEL 7 system without a problem.

    Take care, it's for vanilla systems, anything that sticks out a little is liable to be lopped off in the process.

    Regards
    Jason

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    Jason Ball
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