Linux, HP/UX and binary files

[moose]

Ok...bear with me, I've been tasked by our Sys Admin to try to find out what I can about this, so if I don't provide enough info...sorry...ask what you need to know and I'll try to fill in the blanks.

Anyway, currently we have an HP server running HP/UX that does all of our order entry. We are looking at purchasing a Compaq server and would like to run Linux on it (probably Red Hat since that what Compaq puts on it).

The new linux machine is going to act as an online backup, so if the HP machine goes down the linux machine takes over.

The order entry system uses a Progress database. We will be installing Progress onto the linux server and setting it up so every hour a binary (or several binary) files are transferred to the linux machine (via FTP I believe).

What I'm wondering is...on HP website I've found vague info regarding different types of binary files and what they will support. Some of the types listed are:

HP/UX SOM 32-bit
Linux ELF 32-bit

I was not aware that there are different kinds of binary files.

So...is what we want to do going to work? Will the binaries transfer properly? If Progress reads them on the HP, then as long as they transfer properly it *should* read it on Linux.

Any thoughts?

Thanks for taking the time to read...

Please let me know if I can provide anymore info...

Moose

[bdg1983]

I would think if your Linux kernel has ELF support you should be alright.

This is from my latest kernel .config

CONFIG_SYSVIPC=y
CONFIG_BSD_PROCESS_ACCT=y
CONFIG_SYSCTL=y
CONFIG_KCORE_ELF=y
# CONFIG_KCORE_AOUT is not set
CONFIG_BINFMT_AOUT=y
CONFIG_BINFMT_ELF=y
CONFIG_BINFMT_MISC=m

[stiles]

Originally posted by moose:
<STRONG>The new linux machine is going to act as an online backup, so if the HP machine goes down the linux machine takes over. </STRONG>

You may want to try to get a (DEC?)Tulip NIC for this. I read recently that these NIC's support multiple MAC address which is usualy needed for this type of failover if your on a switched network. I was under the impression that linux could do this with any NIC that was supported but just read this on the linux HA website. This may be old or missleading info.

actually here's (http://www.linux-ha.org/failover/) the link.

Originally posted by moose:
<STRONG>The order entry system uses a Progress database. We will be installing Progress onto the linux server and setting it up so every hour a binary (or several binary) files are transferred to the linux machine (via FTP I believe).
</STRONG>

OK your going to transfer what binary? I don't know anything about Progress but it sounds to me your tring to FTP your archive log files from your production database to your failover database. So is Progress storing it's archived redo logs in binary format? This sounds like a question for the Progress people. I know when you do this in oracle they sugest that the platforms be the same, but it's possible to do it on different platforms cause the archives are standardized across platforms.

Find out exactlly what files your going to have to transfer and then find out if there is a compatibility issue. If you can't get any answers from Progress just take a full backup from the HP box, install progress on linux and try to restore the database from the HP backup to the linux box.