With the upcoming availability of V5R4 of i5/OS rumored for sometime in the first part of 2006, your thoughts as an administrator may be turning to the release upgrade process. In this tip, I will share a technique that may make the actual upgrade process a little easier and faster. By setting up a virtual optical device and preloading your install media onto it, you can:
test your upgrade media up front to ensure that there are no problems reading it,
avoid having to load CD's during the installation process, and
speed up the installation as the upgrade will run from disk vs. optical CD.
The steps to create a virtual optical device, create an image catalog, and load the image catalog onto the virtual device are detailed in the IBM manual titled "Install, upgrade, or delete i5/OS and related software", publication number SC41-5120-xx. The process is outlined in the steps below.
1. Create the virtual optical device using the CRTDEVOPT command. The virtual optical device is exactly what the name implies; it is a virtual device that will assume the role of your optical device (CD reader) during the installation process. The command to create this is:
CRTDEVOPT DEVD(your-device-name) RSRCNAME(*VRT) ONLINE(*YES)
2. Vary on the virtual optical device.
VRYCFG CFGOBJ(your-device-name) CFGTYPE(*DEV) ONLINE(*YES)
3. Create an image catalog. The image catalog contains a copy of the material found on your installation CD's, that is, the Licensed Internal code, Operating System code, and Licensed Program Products. The image catalog is created in the Integrated File System. The create command is:
CRTIMGCLG IMGCLG(catalog name) DIR(IFS directory path)
CRTDIR(*YES) TEXT(description)
4. Add the installation CD contents into the image catalog. This can be done a number of ways, but if you are using an optical device to read the CD's, the command would be:
ADDIMGCLGE IMGCLG(catalog name) FROMDEV(device name, like OPT01) TOFILE(*GEN)
5. Load the image catalog.
LODIMGCLG IMGCLG(catalog name) DEV(your-device-name)
OPTION(*LOAD)
6. Verify the image catalog. This step assures you that the virtual install images that you created are in the correct order and readable.
VRYIMGCLG IMGCLG(catalog name) TYPE(*UPGRADE) SORT(*YES)
When you are ready to do your system upgrade, you must make sure the virtual optical device is varied on, and the image catalog is loaded. To start the upgrade you will issue the PWRDWNSYS command, with RESTART(*YES), IPLSRC(*IMGCLG), and IMGCLG(catalog name). The entire installation and upgrade process will run automatically, all you need to do is watch the console. The copy of the installation media that is stored in the image catalog in the Integrated File System will be used, rather than the CD media.
This is just one phase of the entire upgrade process. Before you actually do your upgrade, you should thoroughly review the contents of the "Install, upgrade, or delete i5/OS and related software" document, publication number SC41-5120-xx. There are other steps that I have not outlined here that must be completed prior to the actual upgrade. If those required steps are not done, your upgrade could fail. So, take the time to review the document and make sure all prerequisite steps are done, and then watch your upgrade run smoothly and quickly.
I will be presenting a Search400.com webcast in the near future on other release upgrade considerations. Check the Search400.com webcast page for upcoming news of this webcast.
---------------------------
About the author: Dan Reusche is a senior systems administrator at Think Federal Credit Union in Rochester, Minn. He has worked with the IBM AS/400 and iSeries platform since 1988, when he worked at the IBM Rochester Development Lab and support of AS/400 systems used within IBM. Dan is also one of Search400.com's iSeries systems management experts. You may contact him at dreusche@chartermi.net.
