Heres the situation. I am looking for input.

I have a single server tree, a 5.0 sp4 box running NDS8 v8.12. A subcontractor did this box, its ASUS mobo bios was jacked up and set the date to 2054. A bios patch fixed that but there are 2054 timestamps in NDS that will NOT come out. So in DSRepair there's always errors, good part is there is no replica ring - or bad part depending.

I built a 5.0 sp4 box and am going to follow Novell's well documented procedure for a "Hardware Upgrade and/or Migration". basically I backup the FS and DS on OLD, prepare OLD for hardware upgrade (does another DS backup and locks local DS), transfer the DS hardware upgrade backup to logged in client local workstation then down OLD.

Then I power up NEW, which has the same server name, internal IPX, and Bogus_Tree name, login the workstation to Bogus_tree, copy the OLD DS hardware upgrade backup to sys:system, then nwconfig - restore DS after hardware upgrade = OLD DS to NEW DS, load SMS/Enhanced SBackup, Restore OLD FS to NEW.
Hopefully at this time all Trustee functionality is restored also.

Basically I have replaced one box with another. I can now take OLD and do whatever I want - the end result is I upgrade OLDs hardware, upgrade to 5.1, and then bring up OLD in a seperate non-production tree and by hand reconfigure OLD from the functionality of production server NEW, which users are currently working happily away on - hopefully. I build OLD's tree based on NEW's tree which came from OLD originally. This is a By Hand procedure.

How did I get in this situation - I dare not say other than it was'nt my doing. But has anyone done this? I can make it work in my TestLab, but its damn tricky. As usual there is no call to NovellTS, we fix our own down south here. Just doing the "Prepare for Hardware Upgrade" and thus removing then reinstalling NDS is hardcore. One slip and its TID city, following the -123 error trail.

Any takers on this? I let it rip on Monday and I have studied Novell's docs and TIDs for days. Special Forces stuff!

Power to the people,

Doug

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Doug Heinsdorf, CNE5, CNA5.
---------------------------
This is my Tree. There are many like it but this Tree is mine.
-=FullMetalNetwork=-

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we did the first 2/3 of what you are attempting.

we built up our NEW 5.1 server in a TEST environment to make sure we wanted/liked what we saw. it had it's own tree seperate from the existing and expiring 4.11 tree but it wasn't on the server we wanted it to be on -- it was on a PC and it's final resting place was on a Compaq Proliant 6400 dual P3 yadda yadda. we wanted NDS and not the FS. the FS was going to come over from the retiring 4.11 server the new one was to replace.

we did the prepare for new hardware thingy on it and copied the funny files to a WS. then we installed 5.1 on it's new home with a bogus tree and got it all churning away all by it's lonesome... then we did the restore after hardware change thingy. we then had NDS from our TEST/TEMP server on our new fancy production server. then we built up our other servers we wanted in the tree and NDS was happy. happy good. then our old 4.11 server with the FS we wanted was brought up and joined the tree (i think) and a all night file copy session was started... this is a HUGE other discussion as to what we went through but there are some factors and people involved that i wanted to tie to the back of my truck and drive at high speeds down I-15...

what you propose does sound exciting and i think the way you have it planned sounds like it should work. just make sure you're running on a full stomach and a good night's sleep as to avoid any brain farts that can happen. it sux to finally get all your data and rights where they need to be at 5:55am monday to finish up a project that was started 6pm friday before. i too was living by the TIDs you mention for several weeks up to this operation. shouldn't have had so many chefs in the kitchen and i think things woulda gone MUCH more smoothly...

bestaluck!

p.s. notaguru (TM)

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chunder

Last edited by chunder on 07-14-01 at 03:44 AM

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oh, why don't you declare a new EPOCH on the server that's been time travelling?

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chunder

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Thanks for your reply, I indepthly read what you went through and you were on the same track as myself. Really its good stuff.
Stuff of legend. I noticed you went from 4.11 to 5.1, per the TIDS, its easiest going from X.XX to the same exact nos. Going from say a 5.0 box to a 5.1 box has its own set of implications. Some FS stuff cannot be allowed to come over. You been there and read that, to whatever degree. If you get some time this weekend, before Sunday Mountain time, if you feel like it I would love to hear how the project ended up!! The dirty details is best. Good or bad the end has importance. Hell I'll bet after you dragged those needy down the road things fell into place! And I know you didnt just put this stuff into an old box and shoot at it! We got 2 chefs in this kitchen, youll be prep cook alrighty?

Seriously, good stuff but what was the end result?

Take 10 deep breaths,

Doug

quote:

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Originally posted by chunder
we did the first 2/3 of what you are attempting.

we built up our NEW 5.1 server in a TEST environment to make sure we wanted/liked what we saw. it had it's own tree seperate from the existing and expiring 4.11 tree but it wasn't on the server we wanted it to be on -- it was on a PC and it's final resting place was on a Compaq Proliant 6400 dual P3 yadda yadda. we wanted NDS and not the FS. the FS was going to come over from the retiring 4.11 server the new one was to replace.

we did the prepare for new hardware thingy on it and copied the funny files to a WS. then we installed 5.1 on it's new home with a bogus tree and got it all churning away all by it's lonesome... then we did the restore after hardware change thingy. we then had NDS from our TEST/TEMP server on our new fancy production server. then we built up our other servers we wanted in the tree and NDS was happy. happy good. then our old 4.11 server with the FS we wanted was brought up and joined the tree (i think) and a all night file copy session was started... this is a HUGE other discussion as to what we went through but there are some factors and people involved that i wanted to tie to the back of my truck and drive at high speeds down I-15...

what you propose does sound exciting and i think the way you have it planned sounds like it should work. just make sure you're running on a full stomach and a good night's sleep as to avoid any brain farts that can happen. it sux to finally get all your data and rights where they need to be at 5:55am monday to finish up a project that was started 6pm friday before. i too was living by the TIDs you mention for several weeks up to this operation. shouldn't have had so many chefs in the kitchen and i think things woulda gone MUCH more smoothly...

bestaluck!

p.s. notaguru (TM)

---

__________________
Doug Heinsdorf, CNE5, CNA5.
---------------------------
This is my Tree. There are many like it but this Tree is mine.
-=FullMetalNetwork=-

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quote:

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Originally posted by chunder
oh, why don't you declare a new EPOCH on the server that's been time travelling?

---

__________________
Doug Heinsdorf, CNE5, CNA5.
---------------------------
This is my Tree. There are many like it but this Tree is mine.
-=FullMetalNetwork=-

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doug. i will try and relive the pain for you tomorrow when i am home and "studying" for my CCNA stuff...

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chunder

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quote:

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Originally posted by chunder
doug. i will try and relive the pain for you tomorrow when i am home and "studying" for my CCNA stuff...

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Alrighty, not only are you:
1)Right next door to Novell.
2)Already a CNE
3)In the same time zone as me.Give it up man!!!
4)Oh yeah, you got AZ neighbors!!! Four Corners - right?
5) I dont get to do CCNA until CNE plus getting RedHat7 down.

Thanks Bud!!!

__________________
Doug Heinsdorf, CNE5, CNA5.
---------------------------
This is my Tree. There are many like it but this Tree is mine.
-=FullMetalNetwork=-

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my power was out half the afternoon or i woulda posted sooner... oh well, got the lawn cut.

ok, doug.

what we actually did was build up the 5.1 tree paralell to our existing 4.11 tree. we built it properly -- the 4.11 tree wasn't a good structure at all. it was installed by someone who used to admin a 3.1 server and i think there are many an ugly tree out there that were put up too soon by someone who was used to bindery. anyway... we got the new (5.1) tree built up the way we wanted -- one O, then 2 OUs (one for us, one for 3rd party connecting via WAN), and then under ours, a location based OU and OUs for each dept.

back to the topic --

we did as i mentioned previously once we had our new tree tuned/planned the way we wanted. so, what we ended up with was a FS on one tree that users in the new tree had no rights to. then the nightmare overnight file copies began to go from old to new server. thinking back on it, we should have done it differently and i think i wanted to... but others were impatient. (shoulda given rights across the tree/servers, yadda yadda). what happened with the file copy was the server the files were coming from was old and IDE based and had issues with the volme and we almost lost it all.. then someone ran a DSREPAIR at the wrong time and we almost lost the old tree altogether. the old server was crashing. crashing bad. server bad. we actually finally got the files where we wanted them -- why didn't we do an FS restore? our backup guy didn't get his part done when we thought he had... he basicallly couldn't connect to the new tree/server running IP only with the old IPX backup server. why didn't we load IPX? boss told me to "REMOVE ALL IPX... WE ONLY WANT IP" so i took out the ipx compat on install of all servers... so we then had to mess with CMD/SLP etc. it wasn't fun. ok, like i said, we got the files over to the new server... then we had to assign rights to everyone... again, too many chefs in the kitchen. i had worked with nw5.x more than anyone there (my boss and 2 other admins) and i was trying to get them to "do it my way" but they weren't. things got confusing. it was probably 3 or 4 am and no sleep. then, oh, this is good... we were also implementing our new Cisco switched (Catalyst 5506 and 3 3500s). they didn't want to talk Novell talk so we weren't getting client connectivity but only on ocassion. we ended up needing to enale PortFast on all ports or something... i forget (by choice).

where was i? oh, we eventually got the rights people needed to get MOST work done by the time the started coming in at 6:30am. then because we also cleaned up the FS to a more logical less messy structure, we had to wait for people to cry about a file they couldn't access, find it's new place, assing them rights and then tell them what drive it was on. we were hated. the floor in my cubical isn't comfortable. sleeping in a low back chair is bad on the neck and when your feet are on the desk: WARNING - CHAIR MAY ROLL!. but basketball in the parking lot at 2:30 am is nice in october in salt lake city and eggs benedict at denny's at 5am sure is yummy!

i'm gunna have to read this one or 10 times and see if it makes sense and make edits here and there... but, like i say, you're already on a much smoother path than what we ended up doing.

quote:

---

Alrighty, not only are you:
1)Right next door to Novell.
2)Already a CNE
3)In the same time zone as me.Give it up man!!!
4)Oh yeah, you got AZ neighbors!!! Four Corners - right?
5) I dont get to do CCNA until CNE plus getting RedHat7 down.

---

i've been interviewed by novell. did you know the sign is BLUE on their new building?!?! and i still have to pay for my incindets.. and the state is one of their biggest customers!

cne? paper man, paper.

timezone schmimezone.

can you believe there's one place in the US and probably the world where 4 - count 'em 4! - states meet in a perfect point?

yuma's damn near part of mexico AND california!

CCNA for me (soon or i kick my XXX) then w2k upg (will take 2 tests) then hopefully some Linux.

if i'm a prep cook, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY! KEEP THE KNIVES AWAY FROM ME!!!



HTH

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chunder

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quote:

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Originally posted by chunder
i'm gunna have to read this one or 10 times and see if it makes sense and make edits here and there... but, like i say, you're already on a much smoother path than what we ended up doing.

---

__________________
Doug Heinsdorf, CNE5, CNA5.
---------------------------
This is my Tree. There are many like it but this Tree is mine.
-=FullMetalNetwork=-

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is there a report yet doug?

man, i've been so immursed in ZfD3! ok. you don't need to know that.. but that's why i haven't responded to this... then, i go home and night (and when my wife is working late) immurse myself in Counter-Strike for the rest of the evening... and maybe go through some more CCNA stuff... <yadda yadda>

you ever play CS? you should. maybe i should look into the Q3 mod you speak of... tell me more.

anyway. anxious to hear of your adventures!

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chunder

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