We have in a couple of occasions moved root disk & flashcard in netra 240 to new identical hardware instead of replacing mb in dead server. Flashcard is to preserve mac adresses and mainly hostid for license stuff. Works without doing anything other than poweron & boot.
Now we have a similar issue with a vfire 445. Can we move working root disk & idprom from sc to new identical hardware.
Ps
In both situations svm is also in play( metastat etc.)
You don't say which version of Solaris this is. Please post your OS version.
Firstly, whilst it's up and running, and before you do anything with the existing system, make sure you know the hostid exactly!! If you move the root disk(s) and cannot get the original hostid, to set it you'll need to inject the required value into the kernel module. If you don't know what hostid you need at that time you are screwed.
Also, blatantly obvious thing to say I know is, you need to ensure that you are also moving the metadb (which is usually on a very small disk partition) otherwise SVM won't work on the new machine. If metadb is on a non-root disk then you'll have to move that too.
If the root disk is SVM mirrored then I guess you mean to move a pair of disks??
There's likely no EPROM on this hardware to allow you to move the NIC address, etc, and the hostid is hashed from the NIC address on SPARC hardware. So it's quite likely IMHO that you will need to forcibly change the hostid on the new box. The code to do that I posted on this forum a long time ago so you can search for it. REMEMBER THOUGH, that the code is different for SPARC vs X86 and both are published on here. Make sure you use the right method.
If you've been professional and have a full backup I don't see any harm in giving it a try.
(If you cannot find the relevant hostid discussion on this forum drop me (hicksd8) or moderator gull04 a PM and prompt one of us to post back on this thread. We know how to do this.)
Hi again and thank you for your interest.
Both machinetypes are SPARC's, OS =Solaris 10, And you are right - its a mirrored diskpair, containing the metadb in one of the slices.
There are only those 2 disks.
In the netra 240 its a flashcard containing MAC & HOSTID & some other startup config values.
In the Vfire 445 MAC & HOSTID is contained in a removable prom (idprom) on the SC (System Controller card).
What worries me is that some HW is globally ID'd (disk wwn etc) & not only identified by "the place" in the server.
Actually we have tried to replace a System Controller board and the MACs & hostid were preserved, because we moved the hostid prom to the new SC board.
PS:
I know the hack that inserts another hostid than the computed one in a startup file in rcx.d , but thats only necessary in X86
No, it's not only necessary in x86.
On x86 the hostid is computed at random at installation time. On SPARC the hostid is a hash of the hardware NIC address so in situations where you cannot move an EPROM (ie, newer hardware), the hostid will be different from the original box. Therefore you have to forcibly set it by injection into the kernel module.
You are totally right, newer sparcs do not have this option
It worked like a charm moving the mirrored pair of rootdisks & scc card to new identical hardware . Hostid & mac adresses remained the same in new hardware