Upgrading GPFS nodes

After you have downloaded a GPFS for AIX update package into any directory on your system, use the following section to install the fix package.

• Installing a GPFS update for AIX
  Complete these steps to install the fix package:

  1. Unzip and extract the BFF image(s) from the *.tar.gz file:
     
     gzip -d -c < filename > .tar.gz | tar -xvf -
  
  
  
  2. Verify the update's BFF image(s) in the directory.
     
     Normally, the BFF images in the directory would be similar to the following:
     Unnnnnn .gpfs.base.bff
     Unnnnnn .gpfs.msg.en_US.bff
     Unnnnnn .gpfs.docs.data.bff 
     
     where nnnnnn represents the six (6) digits of the PTF number for the BFF image.
     
     For specific filenames, check the Readme for the GPFS update by clicking the "View" link for the update on the Download tab.
  
  
  
  3. Follow the installation and migration instructions in your GPFS Concepts, Planning and Installation Guide.

• Upgrading GPFS nodes
  In the below instructions, node-by-node upgrade cannot be used to migrate from GPFS 2.3 to later releases. For example, upgrading from 2.3.x to 3.1.y requires complete cluster shutdown, upgrade install on all nodes and then cluster startup.

  Upgrading GPFS may be accomplished by either upgrading one node in the cluster at a time or by upgrading all nodes in the cluster at once. When upgrading GPFS one node at a time, the below steps are performed on each node in the cluster in a sequential manner. When upgrading the entire cluster at once, GPFS must be shutdown on all nodes in the cluster prior to upgrading.

  When upgrading nodes one at a time, you may need to plan the order of nodes to upgrade. Verify that stopping each particular machine does not cause quorum to be lost or that an NSD server might be the last server for some disks. Upgrade the quorum and manager nodes first. When upgrading the quorum nodes, upgrade the cluster manager last to avoid unnecessary cluster failover and election of new cluster managers.

  1. Prior to upgrading GPFS on a node, all applications that depend on GPFS (e.g. Oracle) must be stopped. Any GPFS file systems that are NFS exported must be unexported prior to unmounting GPFS file systems. If tracing was turned on, then tracing must be turned off before shutting down GPFS as well.
  2. Stop GPFS on the node. Verify that the GPFS daemon has terminated and that the kernel extensions have been unloaded (mmfsenv -u ). If the command mmfsenv -u reports that it cannot unload the kernel extensions because they are "busy", then the install can proceed, but the node must be rebooted after the install. By "busy" this means that some process has a "current directory" in some GPFS filesystem directory or has an open file descriptor. The freeware program lsof can identify the process and the process can then be killed. Retrymmfsenv -u and if that succeeds then a reboot of the node can be avoided.
  3. Upgrade GPFS using the installp command or via SMIT on the node.