Scenario:

I've got two hard drives in a single machine, one with aix 5.2 and one
with aix 5.3. I use these to dual-boot the machine for development
purposes.

I would like to be able to, while booted into one or the other os,
"mount" a partition from the other drive to access a file or files
(like doing a mount /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1 /mnt in Solaris while being
booted on the c0t0d1 disk). So basically, if booted on hdisk0 I would
like to be able to do a "mount /dev/hdisk1/somepartition /mnt be be
able to access files on hdisk1 in the "somepartition" partition via
/mnt.

Thanks.

kevin

in your case ( and that would be true ONLY for the case you described )
the use of alt_disk_install -W hdisk1 will varyon volume group
altins_rootvg (which is rootvg on hdisk1) and mount /altinst_*
filesystems so you'll be able to access files on hdisk1. In other case
( where is no rootvg no the disk you're trying to access ) the vayonvg
of the volume group that's on that disk will let you mount filesystems
( which in turn are logical volumes ) to any mount points you can
define...
-Vlad

ONLY if an alt_disk_install procedure was done to get the AIX 5.3
version onto the second disk, and ONLY to be able to mount filesystems
from the AIX 5.2 system onto the running AIX 5.3 system. It will not
work from running AIX 5.2 to mount AIX 5.3 filesystems.

aix@mail.com wrote:
> ONLY if an alt_disk_install procedure was done to get the AIX 5.3
> version onto the second disk, and ONLY to be able to mount filesystems
> from the AIX 5.2 system onto the running AIX 5.3 system. It will not
> work from running AIX 5.2 to mount AIX 5.3 filesystems.
>

In other words, the easiest, most foolproof way to share files is
to use a non-rootvg volume group with separate filesytems.
Rootvg's on the same box do not play well together.

Not to ridicule IBM, but I find it amusing (and somewhat ludicrous)
that this functionality, available in Solaris, Linux, HPUX, and even
Windows for crying out loud, is not available in AIX. I can
understand, to a certain extent, if you could not "mount" an AIX5.3
"partition" on an instance of AIX5.2 (possibly filesystem types that
AIX5.2 wouldn't understand) but to not be able to do the reverse just
seems quite lame. Poor design, IYAM (not that anyone did mind
you...;-) ).

It's not a filesystem issue at all. It is that filesystems exist on
Logical Volumes (LVs) and AIX LVM manages LVs within VGs, and VGs are a
whole number of Physical Volumes (PVs - disks to you), and there are
Good Reasons Why.

Cheap solution? Buy one more disk - create a VG with that PV as it's
disk and away you go.

On 2006-01-03, kevinm3574 <kevintm@ameritech.net> wrote:

> Not to ridicule IBM, but I find it amusing (and somewhat ludicrous)
> that this functionality, available in Solaris, Linux, HPUX, and even
> Windows for crying out loud, is not available in AIX.

It *is* available. On AIX < 5.3: alt_disk_install. On AIX > 5.3:
alt_disk_copy, alt_disk_mksysb, alt_rootvg_op.

--
Jurjen Oskam

On 2006-01-04, Jurjen Oskam <joskam@quadpro.stupendous.org> wrote:

> It *is* available. On AIX < 5.3: alt_disk_install. On AIX > 5.3:
> alt_disk_copy, alt_disk_mksysb, alt_rootvg_op.

And in between those AIX versions, also alt_disk_copy, alt_disk_mksysb
and alt_rootvg_op...

--
Jurjen Oskam

Jurjen Oskam wrote:
> On 2006-01-04, Jurjen Oskam <joskam@quadpro.stupendous.org> wrote:
>
> > It *is* available. On AIX < 5.3: alt_disk_install. On AIX > 5.3:
> > alt_disk_copy, alt_disk_mksysb, alt_rootvg_op.
>
> And in between those AIX versions, also alt_disk_copy, alt_disk_mksysb
> and alt_rootvg_op...
>
> --
> Jurjen Oskam

For something even neater look at multibos in the AIX Information
Center.

Multiple AIX instances on a single rootvg!


Steve

the latest sugestion wouldn't work on 5.2, it works only on 5.3
beginning with ML3, so the alt_* commands are the options the get by
with inter-OS level copy-modifying.