SUMMARY: installupdate using NFS?

From: Graham Allan <allan_at_mnhep.hep.umn.edu>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 23:54:47 -0600

1.5 line summary: yes, it works... I did 3 systems using the NFS option
today, no problems.

Most conveniently, it seems that installupdate even starts the network
and NFS for you if required. I thought I would have to use the same
steps as when installing patches over NFS, but installupdate appears to
run "/sbin/init.d/{inet;route;nis;nfsmount} start" anyway, so it is
really very simple to use.

My original question:

  When performing a 4.0D to 4.0F update today I mistakenly mistyped the
  installupdate command and it responded with its usage summary. This
  including an option I'd never heard about:

  installupdate -i server:exported_mount_point # from NFS remote
  filesystem

  is this really possible (I guess I could try it and see)? It's not
  mentioned in the installupdate man page, or the Tru64 installation
  manual, but could be handier than carrying around a CD drive to a
  bunch of old DEC3000 systems, as I don't use RIS.

From: John Losey

  I'm not sure if it would work with an installupdate, but I've NFS'd
  directories before for patch installation. All you have to do is
  bring up network services and make the appropriate mount in single
  user mode. I would think that at one of the reboots, installupdate
  would get confused as it would probably loose its mount point, but
  they may have worked around that. You might need to just test it and
  let us know.


Then alan _at_ nabeth.cxo.dec.com wrote:

        Just guessing... There are generally three reasons that
        a feature goes undocumented.

        1. Someone forgot to.

        2. The feature isn't reliable enough to support.

        3. It was intended for internal use only. For example,
            one of the installation test people may say to his
            engineer friend responsible for installupdate, "this
            would make my life easier", so the engineer adds it.
            And, being internal use only, if the friend complains
            "it doesn't work right when I...", the engineer can
            say "I'm too busy right now, do it the old way". The
            engineer can't say this to a Show-stopper IPMT case
            from a customer.

        If it isn't supposed to be there, and you don't document
        it, you don't *have* to support it...

and finally no Tru64 question would be complete without input from Dr
Tom Blinn:

Should work, it should mount the file system somewhere that it finds
convenient and then just read the kit from there. Of course, this is
only going to work if the network can be started up, so it tends to
work best if you've booted all the way up to multiuser, then shut down
to single user mode, and of course, the client has to be configured to
be able to mount remote file systems :^)

Tom
Received on Wed Dec 29 1999 - 06:05:24 NZDT

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