Overview of HP Stage/iX

by Venugopal Commercial Systems Division

HP Stage/iX is an operating system facility for applying and managing MPE/iX patches on your system. Using HP Stage/iX reduces system downtime and provides an easy and reliable method for backing out patches.

Use HP Stage/iX to place PowerPatch and/or reactive patches into staging areas on disk while the system is up, then choose a staging area to use at boot time to apply the patches. After the patches are applied, they can be backed out at any time through a reboot to the Base (the version applied by the last tape update). Once you are satisfied with the patches on the running system, you can commit the staging area to form a new Base while the system is running (no reboot is needed).

Requirements

HP Stage/iX is targeted for larger HP 3000 systems with adequate extra disk space. Since putting patches in staging areas requires that additional files be placed on disk, using HP Stage/iX uses a lot of disk space. Adequate disk space on LDEV1 is especially critical, since a large percentage of patches require changes to large files that must be staged on LDEV1 (NL.PUB.SYS is an example).




	NOTE: Not all patches are stageable. At the time of release 6.0, Stage/iX cannot handle patches which involve System configuration files, MMSAVE.MPEXL.SYS, non-system volume set files, and patches with files that contain jobs that are streamed during patch installation. Patches will be identified as stageable or not stageable during the installation process.

HP Stage/iX Concepts

HP Stage/iX has three interfaces:

HP Patch/iX menu—allows you to stage patches to staging areas once HP Stage/iX is initialized (as well as create CSLT/STORE tapes as usual). Refer to "Overview of HP Patch/iX" in this chapter for information about HP Patch/iX.
STAGEMAN utility—allows you to manage your HP Stage/iX environment, and obtain information about the environment and individual staging areas.
STAGEISL utility—is an ISL utility available when the system is down. It contains a subset of the STAGEMAN functionality, and allows you to recover from most errors or mistakes.

Your operating system resides in what HP Stage/iX refers to as the Base. This is the set of files laid down by the last system installation or update (from tape). HP Stage/iX creates and manages staging areas, which are file containers on disk that hold versions of files that are different from the Base. (A staging area is actually an HFS directory which holds all the files associated with that staging area.) More than one staging area can exist at a time. Each staging area contains the difference, or delta, between the Base Operating System and a patched OS.

When a staging area is activated on the next boot, the files in the staging area's directory are moved (renamed) into their natural locations. (For example, the staged version of the NL is moved into NL.PUB.SYS.) At the same time, the Base versions of the files are saved into an HP Stage/iX archive directory. When the staging area is backed out (when the system is booted back to the Base), the converse takes place, and the system is restored to its original state.

When an active staging area is committed to the Base, the staging area's directory is deleted, and all archived Base files are purged. The files that were switched into their natural locations when the staging area was activated remain there as part of the new Base. This releases any disk space that was used by the staging area.

HP Stage/iX (with the help of HP Patch/iX) allows new patches to be staged and applied in a cumulative fashion. If you create a new staging area while a staging area is active, the new staging area will contain all the changes between the Base and the active staging area, plus the new patches applied to the new staging area.

Installing and Initializing HP Stage/iX

HP Stage/iX is part of the Fundamental Operating System (FOS), and is therefore automatically installed when you update to OS version 6.0 or later. To be able to use HP Stage/iX you must:

Update or install your system software to version 6.0.
Install HP Patch/iX.
This step is required to manage your qualified patches.
Initialize HP Stage/iX using the STAGEMAN utility.
Refer to the HP 3000 MPE/iX System Software Maintenance Manual Release 6.0 and follow the directions in the manual for updating or installing your system software, and managing patches by staging areas.

STAGEMAN Utility

Using the STAGEMAN utility, you can control and obtain information about your HP Stage/iX environment.

Uninstalling HP Stage/iX

The HP Stage/iX environment can be uninstalled any time there is no active staging area. This action deletes all staging areas and any files and directories that HP Stage/iX has built. This activity does not just turn off HP Stage/iX; it completely removes any and all files associated with the environment.

Safety Features

There are two safety nets available for HP Stage/iX users:

Title not available (Safety Features )

STARTBASE: is an ISL utility which always points to the Base version of START. If your system ever gets into a state where you cannot boot from the last staging area you have SET to be activated, you can enter the STARTBASE command at the ISL prompt to boot your system back to the Base.
STAGEISL: is an ISL utility that provides users with a subset of the STAGEMAN functionality when the system is down. Specifically, it allows you to LIST the available staging areas, get the STATUS of the Stage/iX environment, and SET to either a staging area or the Base.

HP Stage/iX HELP

Help is available for all HP Stage/iX functions from within the HP Patch/iX, STAGEMAN, and STAGEISL facilities. With STAGEMAN or STAGEISL, use the HELP command. With HP Patch/iX, help is available in HP Stage/iX context with the [F1] function key.