[Info-vax] Manage TCPIP Services/UCX on a different system disk

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2022-02-02 23:16:15 +0000, Rich Jordan said:

> Is there a good way to configure TCPIP Services on a second system disk 
> that is available but not the active system disk?  Not a cluster 
> configuration; we're using an alternate system disk to stage a new 
> server; it is fully config'd but we will need to do a reconfig of TCPIP 
> on the 'other' system disk (which will have conflicting addresses) 
> before booting it.
> Our alternative is to unplug the LAN cable, boot the second disk, run 
> through the reconfigs, then shut down, recable, and boot.  Hoping 
> there's a better options.

If this is an HPE Integrity Itanium server, configure and use the iLO. 
That's how I've been deploying, as it allows easy access into the 
target network and into the target server and with a minimal path 
established through the target network firewall.

Configure the iLO up for your current source LAN configuration to start 
with. Get IP and the rest of the server configured, apps installed, and 
the rest. Networking options here include using DHCP on both source and 
target network, or using DHCP with an assignment based on the iLO MAC 
address source or target network, or acquiring a static address and 
details for both the source and target networks, and re-setting the 
static address, subnet, and router address as the last step before 
packaging and shipping the server for deployment on the target network. 
DHCP MAC is probably the easiest and probably also the least 
error-prone approach, if you have access to that on both source and 
target network.

For this or future deployments, TCP/IP Services can also be configured 
to use DHCP with caveats, though it's currently far too stupid to be 
all that useful with hosting without manual configuration help 
pre-deployment.

What you're doing here is basically the same sequence as setting up 
what will be a hosted server.

For anybody doing multiple deployments, TCP/IP Services and the OpenVMS 
startup are in need of an overhaul. TCP/IP Services needs to be 
platform-integrated and automatically started and with DHCP enabled and 
with at least the ssh server and a keypair-key enabled for user SYSTEM, 
unless somebody has previously gone through the rest of the TCP/IP 
Services configuration process post-installation. Because not all 
hosted installations are going to have an iLO- or DRAC-like or IPMI 
path. The current UI is piecemeal and archaic and less than easily 
automated, unfortunately.



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