IPv6 on HP UX 11.11 (11i v1)


We've got an old HP j6700 workstation floating around (HPUX 11.11) that we'd like to enable IPv6 on. With that goal I returned to the HP support site to download the applicable patches (11.11 lacks IPv6 support out of the box) and quickly ran into trouble...

 

Notes:

  • In order to enable IPv6 you need to install prerequisite patches
    • To get the patches, you need an HP Support contract (SAID)
  • Once you have the patches, you will need IPv6NCF11i
    • This one is available for free
  • HPUX 11i IPv6 page (hp.com)

I wasn't able to get everything installed since we don't have a current HP Support contract for our HPUX machines. From what I'm able to gather, this is what needs to be done if you have access to the HP software you need:

1) Download the following patches for 11i V:

  • Cumulative Transport Transition patch PHNE_35351 (Superceded by PHNE_39386)
  • Cumulative STREAMS Transition patch PHNE_35453 (Superdceded by PHNE_37259)
  • IPv6NCF11i

    The HP Support reps I spoke with gave me the newer patch numbers.

2) Copy the .depot files to the HP UX machine (Something like WinSCP should work

3) Run swinstall -s /path/to/the.depot file and run through the installer
... For help on navigating the installer, see this previous article.

4) You may run into depencency issues. In this case, you'll need to download and install the prerequisite software (Hopefully you can get the software from HPs website)

211iV1-DependencyError.png

311iV1-DepotFailedAnalysis.png

 


Since HP only allows you to download the IPv6 patch but not the pre-requisite patches, I was unable to proceed with installing IPv6 support on our HPUX 11.11 machine. This was disappointing- I never suspected that they'd bait & switch me. In my mind if the IPv6 patch is freely available then the prerequisite packages should be available as welll. This is an OLD machine that has been out of support for years and we just want to connect it to our IPv6 network.

If anyone knows of a legal way to acquire the prerequisite patches without a support contract, please let me know in the comments.