Edit: The migrate DVD is no longer there. The fixpack is no longer there.
Originally posted November 17, 2009 on AIXchange
I had some VIO servers running 1.5.2.5-FP-11.1 SP-01 that I wanted to upgrade to 2.1.2.10-FP-22. The machines were in a remote location and consisted of both blade and “regular” servers. While I could have recruited someone to burn the migration .iso image and physically install the media into each DVD drive, I wanted to keep things simple. I decided to use NIM for the migration.
It helped that I could follow this great document that outlines the necessary steps for conducting an NIM migration.
I started by downloading the migration .iso image from here and the VIOS fixpack from here.
Then I loaded the migration .iso image into a virtual optical library (something I discuss here).
After making the DVD image available to a client LPAR using my virtual optical device, I mounted the DVD in the client LPAR. Then I used NFS to export the mounted DVD from my client LPAR over to my NIM server, which in this case happened to be a stand-alone server. Obviously, if my NIM server had been a client LPAR of my VIO server, I could have used the virtual optical directly to my NIM server, but I had to get a bit more creative here. Ultimately though, I accomplished my goal, which was to be able to mount the DVD image on my NIM server.
I made sure to bring my NIM server to the latest AIX level (6100-04-01-0944 as of this writing) and then followed the instructions in the aforementioned Migrate VIO document.
In my case, I first ran:
“gencopy -d /mnt -t /export/vios all”
After everything was copied from the optical media, I ran these commands:
“nim -o define -t lpp_source -a location=/export/vios -a server=master
vios_migration_lpp”
“nim -o define -t spot -a location=/export/spot -a server=master –a
source=vios_migration_lpp vios_migration_spot”
The first command defined my lpp source; the second defined my spot.
At this point I logged onto my NIM server so I could set up my NIM client to install using rte. (By the way, here’s more info on NIM.)
I rebooted the VIO server and went into SMS mode. After verifying that the network installation settings were correct, I booted the VIO server from the NIM server. Then I selected the option to have it migrate my VIO server. Everything came up and ran as expected. After the reboot, it reported that it was at level 2.1.0.0.
Then I loaded the fixpack by NFS mounting my fix directory and running:
updateios -accept -install -dev /nfsmnt/fixes/vios.fixpack.22
At this point, my VIO server reported that it was at level 2.1.2.10-FP-22. That’s where I wanted it.
Physical media is fine; use it all you want. But I’ll take virtual optical and NIM every time.