Installing HP-UX 11.0 and Updating HP-UX 10.x to 11.0 HP 9000 Computers Edition 1

236 Appendix C

Ignite-UX System Administration

Section 2: The Install Archive

This section will cover the following topics:

• Creating an OS Archive (golden image).

• Conﬁguring Ignite-UX to recognize the OS archive.

• Using Ignite-UX “ignite” tools to install to a target.

In this test scenario, we will create a “golden image”, or OS archive,

which is a snapshot of a known good installation which we want to copy

to other systems. The system we will copy is referred to as the “golden

system”. The OS archive is a tar or cpio archive which will be distributed

to other client machines.

We will explain how an OS archive is created, and placed under

Ignite-UX control. We will then add applications and patch bundles

speciﬁc to that OS archive. Note that Ignite-UX does not require us to

create an OS archive to install a new client OS; we have chosen this

mechanism because it’s quicker to install an image than to go through

the swinstall process. The OS archive method can decrease new OS

installations to under 30 minutes.

The conﬁguration ﬁle structure used by Ignite-UX is well documented in

the instl_adm(4) man page. In the next pages we’ll be modifying a

number of conﬁg ﬁles, but the key one, which is read ﬁrst to determine

what software is available, is the /var/opt/ignite/INDEX ﬁle. This ﬁle will

point to additional ﬁles which will further specify options and

conﬁgurations.

Step 1: Creating an OS Archive

Once you have a golden system with the base OS, Ignite-UX has a facility

to create an OS archive. Note, it is up to the administrator to deﬁne

exactly what constitutes a golden system. Some administrators will

choose to place patches, applications, kernel conﬁgurations, etc. on the

golden system, others will only place the core OS. In our example, we

only place the core OS. In general, for speed, you will want to place all of

your common applications, patches and tools onto the golden system.