Hi all,
I've got a question about an OS upgrade.
I'm planning to do a upgrade from AIX UNIX 4.3.2 to 4.3.3 in a few weeks.
I haven't got that much information.
Could someone give me some general tips or hints, things I should think of before? Things I should know, or general errors.
I know this question is a bit weird maybe,
But any tips or hints are welcome,
Thanks in advance!
Erik:D
Erik,
I moved your topic over here since it is AIX specific. Hopefully you will get a better response too.
I actually did this upgrade to a couple of our production servers last winter.
It is really stright forward, just make sure you have plenty of backups and mksysb on hand just incase you need to roll back. I took 3 mksysb's and 3 misc backups. befor i started the upgrade.
You might want to also make sure your microcode is also uptodate since you are also upgradeing your OS.
If you are running any "outside" vendor software i would make sure your upgrade is commpatable w/ their software.
Lastly. and MOST IMPORTANT.
IBM AIX V4.3 end of service is 2 months away
IBM AIX V4.3 end of service is only 2 months away.
Installation support, field support, direct customer
support, and program services for AIX V4.3 will be
withdrawn on December 31, 2003.
Most customers have completed their upgrades to AIX 5L. If
you are still in the process of migrating, we recommend you
complete the transition as soon as possible.
For those customers who must remain on AIX V4.3.3 beyond
the end of service date, IBM is offering a limited fee-
based extension that will provide installation support,
field support, direct customer support, and program
services to be available beginning January 1, 2004 and
ending no sooner than December 31, 2004. This offering is
available only under special bid arrangements. Contact your
local IBM sales office or business partner.
IBM announced the end of service for AIX 4.3 on March 25, 2003.
See IBM Offering Information annoucement.
The information in this bulletin is not available for
viewing via the web. If this information is important to
you, please retain this email.
As Optimus_P already said upgrading AIX is always done following way:
Make system backup (smitty mksysb)
Make optional backup of other volume groups (smitty savevg)
Read carefully through AIX Release notes to determinate right upgrade path. (e.g. from AIX4.3.3 to AIX5.1 you have to use migration upgrade, from AIX4.3.2 to AIX4.3.3 smitty update_all was enough).
Add "latest" fixes to system (when this was written they could be found from: IBM eServer pSeries support site)
After upgrade check what non-os-related bffs (e.g. HACMP, TSM Client, ..) need to upgrade with command "lppchk -v -m3" and upgrade them.
Upgrade all other software that might need upgrading.
For more information about AIX upgrade please refer to AIX Version 4.3 to 5L Migration Guide.
And yes, IBM is dropping support for AIX4.3.3 end of 2003 so you should upgrade your AIX boxes directly to AIX5L.
---Tommy
Thanks for your advices.
I'm gonna update on november the 15th and will let you know if I ran into any problems.
Greets,
Erik
I upgraded my B50 with no problems. Still need to hit the 140s/150s.
Keith
Well,
I got a lot of problems last weekend, which resulted in working on saturday and sunday.
I previewed the installation before doing the real install.
No problems seem to occur, when doing the real install nothing failed, the installation completed, then we decided to reboot.
While starting up, # 554 was displayed in the led.
After doing some research on this error code, we decided first to restore the system from an mksysb (had 2 of them).
When we restored a mksysb from tape, we still had error 554.
So we searched on Internet about this one.
http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=0&q=led\+554&uid=isg1hintsTips0231&loc=nl&cs=utf-8&lang=
After doing all steps mentioned in the document above the result was the same.
We decided to do a complete reinstall of the OS.
Since this morning is everything running again, not smoothly, but it works.
Did any of you have same problems, or any suggestions, for the future?
Erik
Can I ask what was your AIX level when you started upgrade and what was your target AIX level?
---Tommy
AIX Level was 4.3.2.0
Don't know which maintenance level.
Target Level is 4.3.3.0
Is this enough information?
Erik
Yes, that was enough to find out that you have used right upgrade method (smitty update_all). So the problem was not there. 
Did you check integrity of system before upgrade (lppchk -v, lppchk -cu, lppchk -lu doesn't return any errors, df -k shows sufficient space in /usr and oslevel command returned 4.3.2.0)?
In some situations lowlevel in microcodes could cause problems like you described.
---Tommy
Haven't done any system integrity checks.
However, there was enough space on this /usr, and yes
the oslevel command did return 4.3.2.0.
We're going to update 2 more servers in January, but I've decided I'm going to hire a person who's going to do it for me.
Maybe he can learn me some things, and I will let you know by then.
Thanks for all your replies,
Erik;)