Hp-ux FAQ (ZT)

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Specific to Systems Administrators

Q: Can I upgrade directly from 9.x to 11.00?
A: No. A move to 10.x is required before a system can be upgraded to 11.00. HP supports only the current and previous release of HP-UX. See page 60 of the HP-UX 11.00 Software Developer\'s Guide for a graphic showing the supported upgrade paths.

Q: What are the hardware requirements to support an upgrade to HP-UX 64-bit 11.00?
A: You need to have PA8000 hardware as indicated in the support table in this FAQ plus a firmware upgrade. Please read \"Readme Before Installing and Updating HP-UX 11.00\"; it will help you decide if you need a firmware upgrade. If a firmware upgrade is needed, you can arrange the upgrade through your local HP Customer Engineer.

Q: Which systems required a firmware upgrade to utilize HP-UX 11.00 64-bit?
A: For older systems that contain PA8x00 CPUs, the PCD firmware must be upgraded to support HP-UX 11.00 64-bit. These older systems include earlier PA8x00 models of the K- and T-class systems. Please contact your local HP Customer Engineer to schedule a firmware upgrade.

Q: How can I tell if I am on a 64-bit HP-UX system?
A: Use the command getconf KERNEL_BITS. If run on a 64-bit 11.00 system, it will output 64. If run on a 32-bit 11.00 system, it will output 32. If run on HP-UX prior to 11.00, getconf will complain about KERNEL_BITS being an unknown option.

Q: What are the RAM and disk requirements of 11.x?
A: 11.00 32-bit and 64-bit can boot with as little as 64MB RAM and 1GB disk, but the performance would be very slow. Here are the recommended minimums:
11.00 32-bit: 128MB RAM, 1-2GB disk
11.00 64-bit: 512MB RAM, 2-3GB disk
The 11.00 64-bit system doesn\'t require twice the disk space of an 11.00 32-bit system. The size of the 64-bit executable has been optimized since 10.x and has shown modest growth.

As mentioned earlier, the full benefits of 64-bit computing will not be realized until a system has more than 4GB RAM and large amounts of swap space (4GB and higher). This is the first step in exploiting the large memory address space that 64-bit provides.

Q: How can I tell how much memory exists on my HP-UX system?
A: The top(1) command can be used to ascertain how much memory has been configured on the system. Here are some combinations of commands that can be used:
     dmesg | grep Phy
     cat syslog | grep Phy

Q: Will the system administrators and users have to be re-trained once I upgrade my system to 64-bit?
A: NO. The vast majority of the commands and user interfaces will remain identical between 32-bit and 64-bit HP-UX. Furthermore, the differences that do exist usually involve minor formatting changes in command responses to allow for the potentially larger address and data fields allowed by 64-bit HP-UX.

Q: When a customer upgrades from 32-bit HP-UX to 64-bit HP-UX, will they have to reload or reformat their data?
A: The upgrade of HP-UX to 64-bit will not necessarily cause a customer to have to reload their data. All of the 32-bit files are accessible on the 64-bit system. However, the application-specific data may have to be reloaded if the application requires it. For example, if binary data or pointers are stored in the database, then these may need further attention. For these cases, see Interoperability of 32- and 64-Bit Applications on 64-Bit HP-UX for details and examples.

Q: What additional system resources are recommended for 64-bit HP-UX 11.00?
A: The additional resources required by 64-bit HP-UX 11.00 are:
Add extra disks to provide more than 4 GB of swap
Add memory cards to provide more than 4 GB of memory
Increase kernel parameters
maxdsiz more than 0x40000000
maxdsiz_64bit more than 0x400000000
maxswapchunks 10000



from here:
http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/os/osfaq.html