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Pre-upgrade requirements

You can prepare for VxVM 5.0 upgrade requirements in two phases:

• Tasks that can be done well ahead of starting the upgrade (see Planning the upgrade).
• Tasks that need to be done just before starting the upgrade (see Preparing for the upgrade).

Planning the upgrade

Complete the following tasks in advance of upgrading:

• Be sure that the administrator doing the upgrade has root access and a working knowledge of Solaris operating system administration.
• Check that all terminal emulation issues are worked out. The terminal selected should be fully functional during OpenBoot prompts and single-user and multi-user run levels.
• Check the latest Storage Foundation Release Notes to verify that the system has all required Solaris patches.
• Schedule sufficient outage time for the upgrade and possibly several system reboots.
• If using EMC PowerPath, ensure that you are using at least mandatory patch level 2.0.3. See http://support.veritas.com/docs/234734 for more information. The patch level makes changes to /etc/system that prevent panics and failure of vxconfigd. Upgrading PowerPath may require a system reboot.
• To reliably save information on a mirrored disk, shut down the system and physically remove the mirrored disk. (This may not be practical, but if done, offers a failback point.)
• Make sure that all applicable license information is available and copy the contents of /etc/vx/licenses to a safe directory. If it exists, you should also copy the contents of /etc/vx/elm to a safe directory.

Preparing for the upgrade

 To prepare for the upgrade

1. Ensure that you have created a valid backup.
2. Review the Veritas Storage Foundation Release Notes.
3. Ensure that you have enough file system space to upgrade Veritas Volume Manager. Also, identify where you will be copying the distribution and patch tar files. The usual place is /patches/Veritas when the root file system has enough space or /var/tmp/patches if the /var file system has enough space.

   Do not put the files under /tmp, which is erased during a system reboot. Do not put the files on a file system that is inaccessible prior to running the upgrade script.

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     Note   You may use a Veritas-supplied DVD for the upgrade as long as modifications to the upgrade script are not required. If /usr/local was originally created as a slice, modifications are required. See Step 8 below for details.

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4. If you are installing using pkgadd instead of the installation script, untar Veritas Volume Manager and patch files (preferably into separate sub-directories). Within the untarred Volume Manager files is a script directory. Note the location of the script directory.
5. For any startup scripts in /etc/rcS.d, you should comment out any application commands or processes that are known to hang if their file systems are not present.
6. Make sure that all users are logged off and that all major user applications are properly shut down.
7. Copy vfstab to vfstab.orig:

   # cp /etc/vfstab /etc/vfstab.orig

   # cp /etc/vfstab /VXVM5.0-UPGRADE-CHECK/vfstab.orig

8. Veritas recommends that all file systems not on the root disk (therefore not required for booting) be unmounted, their entries commented out in /etc/vfstab, the associated volumes stopped, and the associated disk groups deported. Any file systems that the Solaris operating system or Veritas assumes should be in rootdg but are not, must be unmounted and the associated entry in /etc/vfstab commented out.
9. Any swap partitions not in rootdg must be commented out of /etc/vfstab. If possible, swap partitions other than those on the root disk should be commented out of /etc/vfstab and not mounted during the upgrade. Active swap partitions that are not in rootdg cause upgrade_start to fail.