Patching support for multibos and alternate disk on AIX

Some versions of AIX have the capability of maintaining multiple instances of Base Operating Systems (BOS). The additional instance of the BOS can be maintained in the same root volume group (multibos) or on a separate disk on a separate root volume group (alternate disk). The user can boot any one instance of the BOS which is called the active instance.The instances which have not been booted remain as stand by instances. BMC Server Automation supports installation, maintenance, and technology-level updates on the standby BOS without affecting system files on the active BOS.

BMC Server Automation provides NSH scripts to set up and manage the additional BOS instance on an AIX server with multibos. For more information about obtaining and running the NSH scripts, see Using NSH scripts to set up and manage an AIX server with multibos.

Enabling patch remediation on stand by instance of an AIX server supporting multibos or alternate disk

You can choose to perform patch remediation on the stand by instance of an AIX server with multibos or alternate disk by changing the properties associated with the AIX server node in the properties view. Although patch analysis is performed only on the active BOS, BMC recommends you to change the properties associated with the AIX server node even before you run the patch analysis job.

To enable patching on the multibos or alternate disk on a particular AIX Server, perform the following steps on the BMC Server Automation Console:

1. Select the AIX server from the Server node.
2. Select any one of the following values for the PATCHING_ENV* property:

• • Active: Performs patch remediation on the active instance of the BOS object.
  • AIX_Multibos: Performs patch remediation on the standby instance of the BOS, which is maintained in the same root volume group as the active BOS object.
  • AIX_Alt-disk: Performs patch remediation on the standby instance of the BOS, which is maintained on a separate disk and on a separate root volume group as the active BOS object. You must also assign a value to the PATCHING_ENV_NAME* property by entering the name of the disk on which you want to perform the patch remediation on.

For general information on updating property values, see Working with properties.