No Migration Option when migrating from AIX 6.1 to AIX 7.1

Hi,

Fortunately there are other ways to accomplish a migration.

Are you using NIM in your environment? If so then you can use nimadm to migrate. Alternatively you can use  nimadm, alt_disk_mksysb (only if you have a spare harddisk) and SSH to migrate an mksysb to version 7.1.

As for lpar 2: do you have a logon screen when you login from a console prompt?

Cheers

Apologies for the delay. We are using installation disc.

For the second VM, we do not have a logon screen. Is it possible the OS might be corrupt?

Hi,

Likely it's corrupted somewhere. Maybe you have defined stale NFS shares that prevents the lpar from booting.

If you boot from disk then after the language selection the welcome screen should open.

Choose option 2 'Change/Show Installation Settings and Install'

                     Welcome to Base Operating System
                      Installation and Maintenance

Type the number of your choice and press Enter.  Choice is indicated by >>>.

    1 Start Install Now with Default Settings 

    2 Change/Show Installation Settings and Install

    3 Start Maintenance Mode for System Recovery

    4 Make Additional Disks Available


    88  Help ?
    99  Previous Menu
>>> Choice [1]: 2

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Verify that migration is the method of installation.

    1  System Settings:
         Method of Installation.............Migration
         Disk Where You Want to Install.....hdisk0

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Then choose option 0 'Continue with the migration'

                                   Migration Confirmation

  Either type 0 and press Enter to continue the installation, or type the
  number of your choice and press Enter.

    1  List the saved Base System configuration files which will not be
       merged into the system.  These files are saved in /tmp/bos.
    2  List the filesets which will be removed and not replaced.
    3  List directories which will have all current contents removed.
    4  Reboot without migrating.

    Acceptance of license agreements is required before using system.
    You will be prompted to accept after the system reboots.

>>> 0  Continue with the migration.
   88  Help ?

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
  WARNING: Selected files, directories, and filesets (installable options)
    from the Base System will be removed.  Choose 2 or 3 for more information.


>>> Choice[0]:

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*** Please note that you need to boot the installation disk from the VM/ lpar and not by rebooting the host server ***

So upon booting the lpar you need to press 'F1'(or 1 on an acsii terminal) to enter SMS where you can set the boot device to CDROM first. Then exit SMS and reboot so the lpar will boot of the installation disk.

Cheers

I am aware of this. I actually upgraded the first VM and it completed just fine. It had the migration option on the OS installation menu. These 2 do not, one has 2 options and another only has 1.

Any update regarding this?

Hi,

I'm not sure what caused it just yet but when you see the boot process from a console terminal it should stall at some point.

If you login to the particular VIO server using the padmin account you can start a console terminal by ussuing:

[code]mkvt -id <lpar-id number>[/code]

The terminal should probably switch to a blank screen as you cannot login. After that initiate a reboot of the lpar using either the HMC or the IVM and keep the console terminal open. You should then be able to see the lpar boot and maybe you can see at what point it stalls.

Cheers

Please note that there are 2 questions for 2 VMs. What do we do with the VM that only shows Preservation and New and Complete Install options with no Migration option?

Hi,

you need the migration on both of them as preservation is normally used for reinstalling AIX with the same oslevel preserving your configuration.

It could be that you have a Multibos installation (in order to be able to create multiple instances of AIX in the same rootvg) where you have a standby BOS. If that's the case then you don't have the migrate option.

You can verify if you do by issuing:

# bootinfo -v

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If it returns bos_hd5 then that's the culprit. You can decide to remove the standby BOS by issuing:

# multibos -RX

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Either that or change the name of the logical volume using chlv:

# chlv -n hd5 bos_hd5
# chlv -n hd* bos_hd*

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Then recreate the bootimage:

# bosboot -ad /dev/hdisk0 -l hd5

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Set the bootlist and verify:

# bootlist -m normal hdisk0 blv=hd5
# bootlist -m normal -o

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And reboot the partition:

# shutdown -Fr 

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After that you should be able to migrate again.


Cheers

Please find the bootinfo results. and according to your suggestion, there is nothing wrong with bootinfo?
bootinfo-results.PNG

Hi,

just to be sure issue 'lsvg -l rootvg' and see if there are any bos* logical volumes in the output.

Also there needs to be enough free space in rootvg volumegroup to be able to migrate. My guess is it about 12GB for the migration. If there isn't enough free space then the migrate option won't be available either. You then need to add an extra disk to rootvg first with 'extendvg rootvg hdisk*' * being the number of the new disk.

Issue 'lsvg -L rootvg' to display the available 'FREE PPs'.


Cheers

apologies for the delay. please find the output attached.

Thank you
Rootvg-output-1.PNG

Hi,

No problem. The output seems to be okay in order for you to migrate. I will try to look into this issue more in depth later on and get back to you.


Cheers

ok thanks