Dynamic Root Disk Frequently Asked Questions (766143-001, March 2014)

1-22.
Where can I get more information on how to create a DRD-Safe software package?
1-23
1-24
What are the DRD considerations for legacy Device Special Files (DSFs)?
Does DRD Support SoftReboot feature?
1-1. Q:
What is DRD?
A:
Dynamic Root Disk (DRD) is an HP-UX system administration toolset that lets you
create and modify an inactive system image without shutting down the system. To do
this, you can clone the active system image and modify the cloned (inactive) system
image while the system is running. When ready, you can boot the cloned image.
Usually, the only downtime required is the rebooting process.
System administrators use DRD to manage system images on HP PA-RISC and
Itanium® -based systems.
DRD complements other parts of your total HP solution by reducing system downtime
required to install and update patches and other software.
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1-2. Q:
What HP-UX releases will DRD run on?
A:
This release of DRD runs on both Integrity and PA platforms running either of the
following operating systems:
 HP-UX 11i v2 (11.23) September 2004 or more recent
 HP-UX 11i v3 (11.31)
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1-3. Q:
How can I modify the inactive system image without affecting the active system
image?
A:
By only using DRD commands to modify the inactive system image. DRD commands
are specially designed to create the inactive system image and modify only that image.
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1-4. Q:
How can I be sure that the clone is a consistent system if the original system is still
active?
A:
Choose a time to create the system clone when the booted system is fairly quiet. Note
that only the root volume group is cloned, so application activity on other volume
groups will not affect the integrity of the clone. In this release of DRD, the copy
operation is done by fbackup and frecover.
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1-5. Q:
What are the DRD commands?
A:
The DRD commands are:
drd activate