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VIO Server Upgrade - Best Practice Questions - Aix

This is a discussion on VIO Server Upgrade - Best Practice Questions - Aix ; Greetings. We are running several AIX 5.3 TL5 lpars using dual
VIO servers on a p570 that was setup by an IBM business partner about a year ago because we were new to AIX. I'm planning my first VIO
maintenance ...

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02-05-2008, 07:07 PM   #1  

Join Date: Sep 2009

unix   Posts: 0
Junior Member

VIO Server Upgrade - Best Practice Questions

Greetings. We are running several AIX 5.3 TL5 lpars using dual VIO
servers on a p570 that was setup by an IBM business partner about a
year ago because we were new to AIX. I'm planning my first VIO
maintenance upgrade.

Our current VIO level is 1.2 and the upgrade will be 1.5.1. I've read
about the backup and restore precautions and have tested copying
metadata such as lsmap output to /home/padmin before making a
backupios to nim. I've just finished a test upgrade on a small p510
with a single VIO server and test AIX lpar and it went ok, but the
process leaves me wondering about a few things:

1. The APV Best Practices Redbook suggests running updateios with -

install, but the updateios man page implies that -install should not
be used. Running without -install on my small test seemed to work,
but have I missed anything by doing that?

2. What is a good way to manage service and commits? For example, do

you install VIO service, test a week or two, and then run updateios -
commit when it looks good? Or, is it sufficient to just use the -f
flag when doing an updateios to commit any service that was applied
the last time? Or, something else?

3. On a dual VIO server configuration, is it OK to update just one VIO

server and run with one of them at 1.2 and the other at the new level
for a week or so, or is it better to update both in the same
maintenance window?

4. Do you perform your VIO maintenance with the clients active, as the
IBM docs I've seen suggest is safe to do if you take precautions such

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as verifying MPIO status, etc.?

5. Any gotchas that anyone has seen with dual VIO service that wasn't
found in the IBM docs?

Thanks,
Doug

02-05-2008, 10:58 PM   #2  

Join Date: Sep 2009

unix   Posts: 0
Junior Member

Re: VIO Server Upgrade - Best Practice Questions

sharp.doug@gmail.com wrote:
> [...]
> 2. What is a good way to manage service and commits? For example, do
> you install VIO service, test a week or two, and then run updateios -
> commit when it looks good? Or, is it sufficient to just use the -f
> flag when doing an updateios to commit any service that was applied
> the last time? Or, something else?
Both options are ok. Just never commit a new fix, otherwise you'll have
to reinstall the VIO if you have a problem.

> 3. On a dual VIO server configuration, is it OK to update just one VIO

> server and run with one of them at 1.2 and the other at the new level
> for a week or so, or is it better to update both in the same
> maintenance window?
Looks like a bad choice. Consistency is good thing when doing problem
determination.

> 4. Do you perform your VIO maintenance with the clients active, as the
> IBM docs I've seen suggest is safe to do if you take precautions such
> as verifying MPIO status, etc.?
Unless you have everything scripted to manage&test the paths, it's
better (less prone to gotchas) to:
- Down the clients
- Update the VIOs
- Down the VIOs
- Update the firmware
- Restart the whole machine

02-06-2008, 08:32 AM   #3  

Join Date: Sep 2009

unix   Posts: 0
Junior Member

Re: VIO Server Upgrade - Best Practice Questions

On Feb 5, 8:07 pm, sharp.d...@gmail.com wrote:

> Our current VIO level is 1.2 and the upgrade will be 1.5.1. I've read
> about the backup and restore precautions and have tested copying
> metadata such as lsmap output to /home/padmin before making a
> backupios to nim. I've just finished a test upgrade on a small p510

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> with a single VIO server and test AIX lpar and it went ok, but the
> process leaves me wondering about a few things:

This page describe steps for upgrade:

http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp...FPinstall.html

> 1. The APV Best Practices Redbook suggests running updateios with -
> install, but the updateios man page implies that -install should not
> be used. Running without -install on my small test seemed to work,
> but have I missed anything by doing that?

Be sure to check date on that redbook you have, sometimes they are out
of date
Our upgrade path was with -install flag

> 2. What is a good way to manage service and commits? For example, do
> you install VIO service, test a week or two, and then run updateios -
> commit when it looks good? Or, is it sufficient to just use the -f
> flag when doing an updateios to commit any service that was applied
> the last time? Or, something else?

We have same setup as you have (2 redudant vios'es and P570's), we did
upgrade from 1.3.0.0 to 1.5.1.1-FP-10.1 without problems

> 3. On a dual VIO server configuration, is it OK to update just one VIO

> server and run with one of them at 1.2 and the other at the new level
> for a week or so, or is it better to update both in the same
> maintenance window?

Don't know if the 1.2 version has problems (it shouldn't have) but we
did
upgrade of VIOS1 to 1.5.1.1-FP-10.1 then the second one VIOS2, there
was
a time window when we had both 1.3.0.0 and 1.5.1.1-FP-10.1
operational,
and there where no problems, i would suggest you to do upgrade in same
maintenance window.

> 4. Do you perform your VIO maintenance with the clients active, as the
> IBM docs I've seen suggest is safe to do if you take precautions such
> as verifying MPIO status, etc.?

Yes, we did while client DLPAR's where active and operational in

production
environment. Precautions where that we had mksysb/spot backups rdy on
NIM for immidiate restore if needed, and lsmap, lspath, lsdev, lspv
aswell as
the output configuration of HMC on backup (hmc backup data aswell).
Working in dynamic virtual environment is much easyer if you keep good
documentation and logs of what you have and what you did in that env.

> 5. Any gotchas that anyone has seen with dual VIO service that wasn't
> found in the IBM docs?

Be sure to add sufficient disk space on VIOS that you are going to
upgrade,
i would recommend to check size of the following partittions:

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VIO Server Upgrade - Best Practice Questions - Unix Linux Forum - Fixunix.com Page 4 of 6

/usr
/tmp

Also, check the log of updatevios command before you say "Y/n" and
actually
apply patches/upgrades. For example both VIOS servers should have
same
(identical) log entry's. For example:

FILESET STATISTICS
------------------
992 Selected to be installed, of which:
1 Passed pre-installation verification
1 Replaced by superseding updates
116 Already installed (directly or via superseding filesets)
874 Deferred (see *NOTE below)

And also i would recommend you to check status of the VIOS1 and VIOS2
with errpt -c so you track in real time if your VIOS are switching
PRIMARY/BACKUP
state on time. O yea, i forgot, remember to shutdown -Fr after you
finish 1'st
reboot becouse VIOS might be confused about SEA, after reboot all
should be
fine.

Best regards,
Luka Z. Gerzic

02-06-2008, 10:52 AM   #4  

Join Date: Sep 2009

unix   Posts: 0
Junior Member

Re: VIO Server Upgrade - Best Practice Questions

i just did an upgrade a couple of weeks ago - similar setup - dual vio
servers
running at FP 1.2 to FP 1.5.x. the machine is a 9113-p550.

for some of your questions:

> 1. The APV Best Practices Redbook suggests running updateios with -
> install, but the updateios man page implies that -install should not

the steps i did were from the instructions that came with the update
CDs.
i did two sets of backup for this - one on the NIM server (on another
pseries
machine) and one on tapes.

> 3. On a dual VIO server configuration, is it OK to update just one VIO

since our AIX LPARs are running on VIO hosted disks (EMC+powerpath),
and firmware upgrade to the HBA cards will also be applied,
i've decided to shutdown all the LPARs.
applyl the update on 1st VIO. reboot and start a test LPAR

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(that i've created before) to see if things are OK.

> 4. Do you perform your VIO maintenance with the clients active, as the
see # 3

> 5. Any gotchas that anyone has seen with dual VIO service that wasn't
> found in the IBM docs?

the process went smoothly for both VIO servers.

during this upgrade i learned something - IBM invalidates support

contract for
the VIO servers IF any installation/configuration weren't made
by their support engineers. well, at least here in asia that's what
their policy is.

> Thanks,
> Doug

hth.
erik

02-06-2008, 09:13 PM   #5  

Join Date: Sep 2009

unix   Posts: 0
Junior Member

Re: VIO Server Upgrade - Best Practice Questions

Thank you all for the information and advice - it's very helpful!

Here's an interesting tidbit. I updated the test VIO from 1.2 to

1.5.1 yesterday. Today I ran update with -reject to see what would
happen - assuming it would reject the maintenance applied yesterday
and leave me at 1.2 again. Instead, it only rejected about half the
filesets and left me at 1.4.0.

Also, regarding the space for the update, I noticed that the test from
1.2 to 1.5.1 caused /usr to be extended from 1280MB to 1660MB with
very little free space left. It appears that the upgrade uses about
750MB more space in /usr.

Again, thanks very much for your advice.

Doug

02-09-2008, 03:09 AM   #6  

Join Date: Sep 2009

unix   Posts: 0
Junior Member

Re: VIO Server Upgrade - Best Practice Questions

dsharp wrote:
> and leave me at 1.2 again. Instead, it only rejected about half the
> filesets and left me at 1.4.0.

some updates are non-revertable (or auto-committing), just as in aix.

those updates cannot be rejected. that's when you have to fall back to

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mksysbs.

-r

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