I've been using our test setup for further testing, and I'm thinking of reversing my strategy. I may want to upgrade clients first, and then servers.
The basic issue is still how to overcome the roadblock of having an Administrator ID automatically switched from TRANSITIONAL to STRICT upon first login from a 7.1.8/8.1.2+ dsmadmc client. IBM seems to think we can upgrade all servers and all clients to 7.1.8/8.1.2+ simultaneously. That is not practical. In the worst case, this automatic switching could cause the System Administrator's worst nightmare - to lose control over a running system. I am still considering the (very ugly) bypass of an administrative schedule that sets it back to TRANSITIONAL for all Admin IDs every 5 minutes. There will still be some failures. But I am also considering reversing the strategy I had considered earlier, to a different strategy of upgrading all of the clients involved (about 7 of them, I think, but I'm not sure) to 7.1.8 or 8.1.4 first, while the servers are all still running older versions. So far, everything would be working. Then doublecheck that there are not any left behind by scanning activity logs, the summary file, etc. Then once the operation of these clients was stabilized, upgrade our 4 servers one at a time. As each server is upgraded, the already-updated client would cause certificates to be exchanged and that Admin ID to be switched to STRICT, which would be OK since all of the client nodes where that Admin ID might log in from would already be at V7.1.8/8.1.2+. (At least we hope. This may expose those we forgot.) Unless I'm overlooking something big here, I think this would allow us to upgrade each client and each server independently, and iron out any issues one at a time. Any comments on this client-first strategy? Roger Deschner University of Illinois at Chicago "I have not lost my mind; it is backed up on tape somewhere."
