Originally posted by: KevB

Hi Everyone,

I am relatively new to AIX, having some experience on HP-UX, and have been given the task of upgrading our 7029/p615 server from AIX 5.1 to AIX 5.3 so that we can then install Oracle 10g (which has 5.3 as a pre-requisite). We use this machine for [b]porting[/b] our application (generated by CA's AllFusion Gen) to the AIX platform, and therefore we can pause development to perform the upgrade during office hours.

So, my questions are:
1) Is it safe to assume that I should have little/few problems in choosing the Migration-upgrade path to install over our current 5.1 installation?
2) The Installation guide refers to needing 2.2Gb of disk space for 5.3, but doesn't seem to say where this space is required, e.g. is some needed under /tmp /etc /root /usr... etc. what is the split of where that 2.2Gb is needed?
3) How long should I allocate for this upgrade, in physical time? I am guessing I should be able to complete this in under a full day...
4) Are there any special things to look out for during the preparation for the upgrade, and/or during the upgrade, that may cause problems?

Thanks in advance for [b]detailed[/b] answers...

Kevin

Originally posted by: VirtualGreg

1) The defaults are generally acceptable. However, if you don't need to save anything, given this is a development machine, you might just want to perform a New and Complete Overwrite Installation. You'll need to reconfigure TCP/IP and add your users back, so just food for thought. Either way, with 10g you might want to consider using the 64-bit kernel and JFS2 for your storage requirements.

2) 2.2GB likely considers paging space requirements. As I recall the install is about 1.2GB, most of which will be /usr. Make sure you have a couple of mb free in / (root). AIX installp will expand file systems on the fly if you are short on space.

3) The actual migration will probably take less than one hour.

4) Not really - you should refer to Oracle MetaLink for Oracle 10g R1 or R2 specific AIX pre-requisites. You'll want to ensure that after AIX 5.3 is installed that you also update to ML02 + critical fixes + security fixes. You might have an Update CD that has ML02, the last two items or all 3 if needed, can be downloaded from techsupport.services.ibm.com. There are also AIX 5.3 installation and migration tips there too. See http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/support/pseries/news/2005/04/53installtips02.html .

You might want to ensure that all of your device firmware and the system firmware are up to date. You can do this using the microcode update and discovery tool and via the techsupport web site.

Don't forget to backup your system with mksysb first!

You can also investigate other installation options. You could clone your disk with alt_disk_install and migrate the other disk. You might even consider having multiple AIX boot disks for each OS level you want to develop with and just boot between them...

Originally posted by: KevB

Hi VG,
Thanks for the reply. Can you give me a quick way to work out how much free space I do have. Does this equate to unallocated disk space, if so, how do I determine that?
Regards
Kevin

Originally posted by: SystemAdmin

You can run "lsvg rootvg" to display how much space is available in the root volume group. Look at the "Free PPs" and "Used PPs" section in the right hand column of the output from "lsvg rootvg"

Be sure to create a good mksysb backup before starting.

The safest upgrade methodology is to use the alternate disk installation technique to clone the root volume to a new disk, reboot and apply the update. That way, if anything goes wrong, you can boot from the old disk.

alt_disk_install is documented in the Installation Guide and Reference at http://publib16.boulder.ibm.com/doc_link/en_US/a_doc_lib/aixins/insgdrf/alt_disk_migration.htm
Jay

Originally posted by: KevB

Hi everyone,
Thanks to those who have replied.

I have decided to go the route of performing the upgrade on to a new disk that should arrive tomorrow. I have some questions about the availability of the filesystems between the two disks, using the "clone rootvg" approach.

1) If you are using this approach to install a new version of AIX (5.3), are the filesystems off the previous disk (AIX 5.1) visible to the new disk?
2) Is it safe to assume that you could boot between either of the disks, and therefore have a "dual boot" setup, choosing between AIX 5.1 and 5.3 each time you boot... with 5.3 being defined as default so that auto reboots are possible?
3) if 2) above is a safe assumption, what are the steps necessary to setup "dual boot" capabilities?

Thanks in advance for detailed answers

Kevin