Recovery Tools For 11.0

The "expert" system recovery tools formerly delivered on the SUPPORT MEDIA (that allow a user to attempt to repair a corrupted system) are now found on the CORE media and are accessible by booting from the CORE media.

Two new tools and their manpages are included with the Ignite-UX product, which is on the Application Release media. You will need to load the Ignite-UX-11-00 bundle from the media. (Ignite-UX-11-00 is also available from http://www.software.hp.com).

The make_recovery command creates a system recovery tape. This tape can be used to boot and recover a system which has become unbootable due to corruption of the root disk or root volume group. As a "customized" installation medium, it makes use of the installation technology provided by Ignite-UX.
A system can be booted and installed from the tape without user intervention for configuration, customization, software selection, hostname, or IP address.
The make_medialif command creates a bootable LIF image which can be copied to either a DDS tape or a writable CD to create an Ignite-UX install medium.
NOTE: The copyutil tool, formerly supplied as part of the Support Media, is not supported for HP-UX 11.x or later. Instead, you should use the make_recovery tool for creating a system recovery tape.

For more information on expert recovery, make_recovery(1M), and make_medialif(1M) are described in the manual "Installing HP-UX 11.0 and Updating HP-UX 10.x to 11.0".

System Recovery

HP-UX system recovery has been enhanced at 11.0 to support recovery of customized systems. System recovery permits the customer to create a customized system install image of the existing system on a bootable tape. Coupled with a full backup, the customer can recover the system in the event of a catastrophic failure of the system disk or root volume group.

The following new commands have been added for system recovery :

make_recovery(1M)

The make_recovery command is used to create the system recovery image on a bootable tape. (See above.)

save_config(1M)

The save_config command can be run by the system administrator to create a configuration file that reflects the current hardware and software configuration of the system.

check_recovery(1M)

The check_recovery command will check whether the system recovery image needs to be re-created.

For details about these new commands, please refer to their manual pages, included with the Ignite-UX product.




	NOTE: These commands and manpages are not installed on your system as part of the core HP-UX operating system. They are part of the Ignite-UX software package and will be installed on your system when you install Ignite-UX. Ignite-UX is located on the HP-UX 11.0 Application Release media.

Impact

Prior to 11.0, a catastrophic failure of the system disk or root volume group required a cold install and re-installing customized system settings to return the system to its previous state. With enhanced system recovery, the customer only needs to recover using the system recovery image. An up-to-date system recovery will require creating a current system recovery image whenever any modifications are made, such as adding new software, hardware, or patches.