We are looking to update our AIX 4.3.3.0 to Maintenance Level 11. We have
the CD's and documentation, however we have no experience in doing such an
upgrade. We are a little bit nervous considering it's our only mail server.

Can you offer any advice, expertise, hints, tips or even step by step
instructions on doing so?

Is it worth getting a professional in to do so? (in case something turns
pear shaped)

Thanks and Regards
jd

I think, you doesn't need any professional, have a look at
smitty update_all - here you can find a preview option
to see, what will be installed. If the preview give no errors,
I think you can run the update_all without preview.
But don't forget to make a backup (mksysb) of your system before the
update, so you can fall back if the update failed

Friedhelm




jd wrote:

> We are looking to update our AIX 4.3.3.0 to Maintenance Level 11. We have
> the CD's and documentation, however we have no experience in doing such an
> upgrade. We are a little bit nervous considering it's our only mail server.
>
> Can you offer any advice, expertise, hints, tips or even step by step
> instructions on doing so?
>
> Is it worth getting a professional in to do so? (in case something turns
> pear shaped)
>
> Thanks and Regards
> jd
>
>
>

Don't forget the turn on the 'save replaced files' and change the
'commit' option to 'No'. This way, if something goes wrong you can back
out the installed fixes and are back to the previous installation.
Unfortunately this is not the default. If you have some applied, but not
committed software right now I'd commit those before applying the
update. This way you'll have only the new fixes in an applied, but not
committed state, this makes rejecting those easier.

Have a look at 'smitty maintain_software' to find these options.

Markus

Friedhelm Neyer wrote:
> I think, you doesn't need any professional, have a look at
> smitty update_all - here you can find a preview option
> to see, what will be installed. If the preview give no errors,
> I think you can run the update_all without preview.
> But don't forget to make a backup (mksysb) of your system before the
> update, so you can fall back if the update failed
>
> Friedhelm
>
>
>
>
> jd wrote:
>
>> We are looking to update our AIX 4.3.3.0 to Maintenance Level 11. We
>> have the CD's and documentation, however we have no experience in
>> doing such an upgrade. We are a little bit nervous considering it's
>> our only mail server.
>>
>> Can you offer any advice, expertise, hints, tips or even step by step
>> instructions on doing so?
>>
>> Is it worth getting a professional in to do so? (in case something
>> turns pear shaped)
>>
>> Thanks and Regards
>> jd
>>
>>
>>

>>> We are looking to update our AIX 4.3.3.0 to Maintenance Level 11. We
>>> have the CD's and documentation, however we have no experience in
>>> doing such an upgrade. We are a little bit nervous considering it's
>>> our only mail server.
>>>
>>> Can you offer any advice, expertise, hints, tips or even step by step
>>> instructions on doing so?
>>>
>>> Is it worth getting a professional in to do so? (in case something
>>> turns pear shaped)
>>>
>>> Thanks and Regards
>>> jd

If you don't have experience of doing a maintenance upgrade then I would
assume you are not experienced AIX administrators. The posters above are
correct in that it shouldn't give a problem but if it does - and you don't
have the requisite mksysb backups etc then you will be stuck i.e do you know
how to restore a system from a mksysb backup?

If not - then I would advise getting an IBM certified AIX technical
specialist in to do this for you. Up to you though ref the risk. Should only
take an hour or so but you need to weigh up how important this system is to
you.

Thanks, took 27 minutes. All OK.

and no, I don't know... for the record how does one restore a system from a
mksysb tape backup?


"Nigel P. Longbottom" <not@all.valid> wrote in message
news:BDB18AB0.444E%not@all.valid...
>
>>>> We are looking to update our AIX 4.3.3.0 to Maintenance Level 11. We
>>>> have the CD's and documentation, however we have no experience in
>>>> doing such an upgrade. We are a little bit nervous considering it's
>>>> our only mail server.
>>>>
>>>> Can you offer any advice, expertise, hints, tips or even step by step
>>>> instructions on doing so?
>>>>
>>>> Is it worth getting a professional in to do so? (in case something
>>>> turns pear shaped)
>>>>
>>>> Thanks and Regards
>>>> jd
>
> If you don't have experience of doing a maintenance upgrade then I would
> assume you are not experienced AIX administrators. The posters above are
> correct in that it shouldn't give a problem but if it does - and you don't
> have the requisite mksysb backups etc then you will be stuck i.e do you
> know
> how to restore a system from a mksysb backup?
>
> If not - then I would advise getting an IBM certified AIX technical
> specialist in to do this for you. Up to you though ref the risk. Should
> only
> take an hour or so but you need to weigh up how important this system is
> to
> you.
>

jd wrote
> and no, I don't know... for the record how does one restore a system from a
> mksysb tape backup?
>

Take a look at the following documenation. You might want to bookmark
the site and read some of the other books on AIX.

http://publib16.boulder.ibm.com/doc_...nsgdrftfrm.htm

"jd" <spam@mebaby.com> wrote in message news:<ddCgd.3333$K7.901@news-server.bigpond.net.au>...
> We are looking to update our AIX 4.3.3.0 to Maintenance Level 11. We have
> the CD's and documentation, however we have no experience in doing such an
> upgrade. We are a little bit nervous considering it's our only mail server.
>
> Can you offer any advice, expertise, hints, tips or even step by step
> instructions on doing so?
>
> Is it worth getting a professional in to do so? (in case something turns
> pear shaped)
>
> Thanks and Regards
> jd

If you guys are looking for a AIX System administrator, depending on
where you're located, I'M AVAILABLE. I can be reached at
ucstyle@hotmail.com