fleureck@imec.be (Marc Fleureck) (06/04/91)
Hello, A simple but important question for sys admins : I heard from HP support people that this would be possible, but I don't know how to do it : de-install a product or OS with SR10.3 ? _______________ | | | Marc Fleureck | | Sys admin Unix| | Imec vzw | | Belgium | |_______________|
dbfunk@icaen.uiowa.edu (David B Funk) (06/08/91)
In article <976@imec.UUCP> fleureck@imec.be (Marc Fleureck) writes: >Hello, > >A simple but important question for sys admins : >I heard from HP support people that this would be possible, >but I don't know how to do it : de-install a product or OS >with SR10.3 ? > To the best of my knowledge, there is no de-install tool available with sr10.x. The Apollo install tool set, RAI (Release And Install), that was developed for sr10 was planned to have de-install capabilities but it turned out to be enough trouble that it was dropped. There are so many ways that a predecessor system could be configured, that to provide a correct de-install tool, the install tool would have to keep around a complete copy of your old system after doing an update install. Please note that you cannot even trust the install "-v" to tell you all of what is happening to your system during an install. I have been burned more than once by an install silently changing something that, IMHO, it shouldn't have. ;{ So the bottom line is: protect yourself with a backup before doing a major system install, or try it out first on an expendable machine. Dave Funk
fleureck@imec.be (Marc Fleureck) (06/13/91)
In article <6390@ns-mx.uiowa.edu>, dbfunk@icaen.uiowa.edu (David B Funk) writes: > > To the best of my knowledge, there is no de-install tool available > with sr10.x. The Apollo install tool set, RAI (Release And Install), > > So the bottom line is: protect yourself with a backup before doing a > major system install, or try it out first on an expendable machine. > > Dave Funk I wonder if there isn't a fairly simple way to write ones own de-install tool, which in combination with the Apollo install tool will do the job. Here is a version of my own and I would appreciate very much any comments from other administrators on this particular scenario : There are only two kinds of links you have to keep in mind : file links and directory links, which together determine how your configuration looks like ( I am referring here only to links beginning with //..., pointing to other machines ) The install tool provides a "-m" switch in order to perform a clean installation. But this switch only deals with file links, not directory links ( it leaves directory links undisturbed, which means you first have to upgrade the machines to which those links are pointing to ). So if you don't want to alter those directory links this m-switch thing is all you need to perform an upgrade from sr10.2 to sr10.3 ( of course you may want to preserve some files and directories in the preserve_list first ). The rest of the installation is limited to installing the ansi-c compiler version ( 6.8 ), but the rest of the optional software doesn't have to be changed or re-installed ( it's only an upgrade, isn't it ? ) On the other hand if you do want to change directory links ( as in my case ), what you will have to do is write some sort of script which scans all directory links beginning with //... ( which is not too difficult ) and delete them before performing the installation in upgrade mode. Thanks in advance for any comments on this. Marc. ________________________________________________ _ /\ || __||__ Marc Fleureck || | _||_ | Sys Admin Unix _||_||_||_|| IMEC vzw, Fax : 016/229400 |_||_||_||_|| Kapeldreef 75 ||_||_||_||_ 3001 Heverlee |_ ___||_||_| Belgium || || Phone : 0032-016/281397 IMEC vzw E-mail: fleureck@imec.be