Mirroring of Operating System in IBM AIX and Hp_Unix

IBM_AIX:

# lspv : Command to list the physical volumes. Identify the disk that belongs to the volume group "rootvg".

# extendvg rootvg hdisk# : We add another empty disk to the rootvg to mirror the Operating System.

# mirrorvg rootvg : Command to mirror the Operating System.

# lsvg -l rootvg : Command to check the rootvg is mirrored.

# lsvg -m rootvg : Command to check the rootvg is mirrored.

# bosboot -ad /dev/hdisk# : Command to create boot image on the mirrored disk.

# boolist -m both -o hdisk# : Command to update the bootlist.

The above procedure is simple enough in AIX but its really a complicated in Hp_Unix.

HP_UNIX:

Understanding the boot disk structure:

Boot disk is divided into 3 partition:

* EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) Partition.
* OS Partition.
* HPSP (HP Service Partition).

EFI Partition:  Location /dev/rdsk/disk1_p1

OS loader is called "\efi\hpux\hpux.efi"

"\efi\hpux\auto" file that holds several system boot string and trouble shooting utilities.

1) Contains the Master Boot Record at the top of the disk.

2) Each EFI partition is has a GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) and the locations are recorded in the EFI GUID Partition table.

3) Contains OS loader for loading OS in memory during the boot process.

OS Partition: Location /dev/rdsk/disk1_p2

1) LIF (Logical Interchange Format) area in a OS Partition that contains a LABEL File that identifies the location of boot, swap and root file systems.

2) It also includes PVRA, VGRA, BDRA, BBRA.

HPSP:  Location /dev/rdsk/disk1_p3

1) Contains offline diagnostics utilities. Its FAT 32 file system.


Continued.....