Backing up and restoring the system configuration

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You can back up and restore the configuration data for the system after preliminary tasks are completed.

You can maintain your configuration data for the system by completing the following tasks:
  • Backing up the configuration data
  • Restoring the configuration data
  • Deleting unwanted backup configuration data files

Before you back up your configuration data, the following prerequisites must be met:

Note:
  • The default object names for controllers, I/O groups, and managed disks (MDisks) do not restore correctly if the ID of the object is different from what is recorded in the current configuration data file.
  • All other objects with default names are renamed during the restore process. The new names appear in the format name_r where name is the name of the object in your system.
  • Connections to iSCSI MDisks for migration purposes are not restored.

Before you restore your configuration data, the following prerequisites must be met:

  • The Security Administrator role is associated with your username and password.
  • You have a copy of your backup configuration files on a server that is accessible to the system.
  • You have a backup copy of your application data that is ready to load on your system after the restore configuration operation is complete.
  • You know the current license settings for your system.
  • No zoning changes were made on the Fibre Channel fabric that would prevent communication between the system and any storage controllers that are present in the configuration.
  • If the system uses encryption, the recovery procedure generates new encryption keys. Make sure that key servers are online and USB flash drives are installed in the system. Any existing encryption key files on USB flash drives correspond to the previous system and are no longer required, unless using transparent cloud tiering.
  • If the system uses encryption with transparent cloud tiering, at least one USB flash drive containing the encryption key file for the previous system must be installed in the system.

Restoring the system configuration must be performed by one of the nodes previously in I/O group zero. For example, property name="IO_group_id" value="0" . The remaining must be added, as required, in the appropriate order based on the previous IO_group_id of its .

Note: It is not currently possible to determine which canister within the identified enclosure was previously used for cluster creation. Typically the restoration might be performed by canister 1.

Before you begin, hardware recovery must be complete. The following hardware must be operational: hosts, system enclosures, internal flash drives, and expansion enclosures (if applicable), the Ethernet network, the SAN fabric, and any external storage systems (if applicable).

After you finish, you must manually lock the superuser account again if the superuser account was locked before backing up and restoring the system configuration. To lock the superuser account, enter the CLI command: 
chuser -lock superuser
After you finish, if the system is using multifactor authentication then the new system certificate must be exported and then installed as a signer certificate in IBM® Security Verify, using the system's id_alias as the friendly name. To export the new system certificate, enter the CLI command:
chsystemcert -export
To find the id_alias of the system, enter the CLI command:
lssystem | grep id_alias