altinst_rootvg under is meant for alternate disk installation.. But I'm not sure for which version of OS it was created. Similar way the old_rootvg not sure what version of AIX is on both of this VG's
Is there a way I can figure out the version of AIX on both of this VG's without downtime for the server.
There is no way to do that..
You better go for multibos than alt_disk_install as in that case u dont need to go for a down time.. u can just install the OS withb the space allocated on your machine in ROOTVG.
Without downtime it will come down to some detective-work: read out the contents of the respective ODMs with the "odmget" command (stored in "<mountpoint>/etc/objrepos" and "<mountpoint>/usr/lib/objrepos") to find out about the information stored there. Start with "<mountpoint>/etc/objrepos/lpp" and "<mountpoint>/etc/objrepos/history".
Further, you can use the "what" command to find out about the version information of the system binaries in the alternative rootvgs.
Can you confirm which mountpoint you are referring to as I'm not able to do operations with the 2 VG's ( Since its inactive) Not sure how to identify the mountpoints.
Btw . I have identified one more way to find the Version on AIX in the altinst_rootvg by the help of the contents of the below 2 files
You can find out the original mount points issuing "lslv -L <LVname>" or "lsfs -a". Since the mount points might collide with your running system you will have to change them manually, for instance "/usr" -> "/some/mountpoint/usr", etc., before actually mounting anything.
Do so by editing the file "/etc/filesystems", which is in simple stanza format.
you can actively mount one after another of these alt_disk images just using alt_disks_install -W hdisk* - they will be mounted under slightly different names like /alt_var or /old_var but you have afterwards access like for any other filesystem ...
Additionally /dev should be capable to tell you when the /alt_* had been created as this was most likely happening under your currently loaded OS version - it won't show you anything for the old_ since this images was a previous image you did not boot from - most likely for backout purposes ...
