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Ready for AIX recovery with mksysb and mkdvd

AnthonyEnglish Comments (2) Visits (9905)

mksysb - an oldie but a goodie Long before the days of HMCs, VIO servers and LPARs, AIX version 3 and 4 ran on standalone systems. A system had its own tape drive. This would be useful for mksysb backups, which backed up the rootvg. Reliability, Availability, Scalability 1990s style Actually, a rootvg backup was usually a full backup of everything - including all the data - since the idea of separate disks and volume group for data was a luxury most of us hadn't thought of. I saw many sites which survived for 10 years on a single 1 GB SCSI... [More]

Tags: media iso mksysb restore mkdvd nim backup dvd aix virtual library vmlibrary virtual_optical_device rootvg repository

The AIX (junior) detective: when was the last mksysb?

AnthonyEnglish Comments (3) Visits (5139)

Backing up your system ... sort of If you've worked more than 5 minutes on AIX system administration, you would have heard of the famous "mksysb". This refers to the backup named from the mksysb command, which m a k es a sys tem b ackup. Actually, the mksysb doesn't back up your entire AIX system - just the root volume group (rootvg). You still need other backup utilities for databases and non-rootvg file systems. Backup exclusive And, come to think of it, the mksysb doesn't necessarily get all the files in your rootvg. If you have... [More]

Tags: backup mirror mkcd aix mkdvd mkszfile os mksysb /etc/exclude.rootvg logical_volume image.data

Installation without DVD, NIM or VIO

AnthonyEnglish Visits (7618)

MAKING THE BEST OF WHAT YOU'VE GOT A customer wants to clone his production LPAR running AIX 6.1 - it's on a Power6 server - to an LPAR on his DR site which runs an older p5 server. Both sites have HMCs. As the environment is very small, all I/O is handled via dedicated adapters on each LPAR. There is no VIO server (no IVM) or NIM server, and although the p6 production server has a DVD-ROM, the p5 server at DR only has a CD-ROM, not a DVD. That means the mksysb from the production LPAR will need to be in CD format, rather than DVD. We'll use... [More]

Tags: production vmlibrary mkdvd rootvg devices vio dr mkisofs nim dvd clone lpar virtual_media_library mkcd bosinst.data aix_6.1 aix filesets mksysb all_device_kernels virtual_media_repository cd-rom optical_device

Create DVD images with mkdvd

AnthonyEnglish Visits (11749)

Not a spitting image If you want to create a DVD image on AIX, you can do it right from the command line, without even touching physical media, using the mkdvd command. It was a wonder back in ... well, a long time ago ... when these new-fangled CDs came out and you could play music and use them as coffee cup holders (not at the same time). But the novelty of having a button on your computer that spits out a CD or DVD at you has somewhat faded. We want an image, but not a spitting image. On AIX you can create an ISO format image of a directory... [More]

Tags: image dvd mkdvd iso chvopy vio virtual_media loadopt aix vios vmlibrary mksysb mkcd read_only

' rm -r ' and your career

AnthonyEnglish Comment (1) Visits (5600)

"Clean up the system" You have suddenly been appointed as AIX administrator after the previous admin disappeared in mysterious circumstances. You've logged onto the AIX system once before. You've been told to do a final tidy-up of the new 24X7 production system before it goes live tomorrow morning. Someone you met at a party once suggested that a very effective way of cleaning up your Unix system was running the command &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm... [More]

Tags: os original_state dvd soppy_greeting_card crontab camel_trainer mkcd varyonvg volume_groups mksysb delete rm recover mkdvd disaster rootvg install

UPDATED: Load ISO images via VIO server and AIX

AnthonyEnglish Comments (18) Visits (34984)

Updated 28 January 2011 A few notes and clarifications : What I call the Virtual Media Library is often also called the Virtual Media Repositor y (VMR). IBM documentation uses both terms. the syntax for creating the virtual optical device was incorrect. Details within the body of the post below. You may also be interested in an article of mine in the IBM Systems Magazine on the Virtual Media Library: Media Release - Keep software and OS backups handy with... [More]

Tags: recovery dr mkdvd mkcd devices virtual vmlibrary mksysb mkvdev vio file-backed nim disaster mkrep loadopt media aix

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