AIX - Full backup to DVDs 2

[NickHodgson]

Please can someone help with my query? I'm currently setting up a new P5 Server which has AIX 5.3 installed. The server has a DVD-Rom drive, NO tape drive.

I'd like to get it to a point where Volume Groups, Logical Volumes and Filesystems are configured, users added, Oracle installed.

I'd then like to be able to do a full backup so that I can restore back to this point in the future. The server will be used for performance testing so need to tweak settings safe in the knowledge that we can get back to a stable env.

I've had a look at forums and have an idea what I need to do, but I'm having problems.

So far, I've....
1) mkcd -L -S
2) Ftp'd this to my PC and burnt it to DVD
3) Put the DVD in the DVD-Rom drive on server
4) shutdown -Fr

I'd expected this to reboot and then go into some sort of recovery mode so that I could be certain that this step had worked, but it didn't do anything.

Can you please help to get the step above working? Also, once this has been done I assume that the rootvg is safe, so I need to backup the datavg - what do I need to do here, I've seen reference to savevg, is this correct?

Thanks
Nick

 

[khalidaaa]

Why don't you burn the mkcd directly to the DVD attached to the server?

mkcd -L -S -d /dev/cd1 (or whatever you named the dvd)

and yes you can use savevg for other datavgs

Regards,
Khalid

 

[mrn]

Because he has DVD-ROM not DVD-RAM / DVD-RW

Mike

"A foolproof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble, then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant."

http://www.airport-parking-site.co.uk/

 

[NickHodgson]

Thanks Mike, you beat me to it!

 

[mrn]

Do you have any other machines with a tape drive on your network? You could backup to remote tape.

Mike

"A foolproof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble, then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant."

http://www.airport-parking-site.co.uk/

 

[NickHodgson]

It's an option, however in the future we're going to be putting all benchmarking machines on to their own network so would like to avoid doing it this way if possible.

 

[mrn]

May help

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/eserver/v1r3s/index.jsp?topic=/iphbm/iphbmbackup.htm

Mike

"A foolproof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble, then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant."

http://www.airport-parking-site.co.uk/

 

[NickHodgson]

I think this is the SMIT version of the command I issued earlier. The file produced was called "cd_image_49168", i.e. no extension. Not sure if I need to give it an extension or if I need to do anything in 'Record Now' CD writing software to make it bootable.

 

[mrn]

The backgroup command suggested above via smit would leave your ISO image available, I beleive this is what you would need to create the DVD.

mkcd -m /tmp/mksysb -V rootvg -R -S

-m - your existing mksysb
-R - Prevents mkcd from removing the final CD image
-S - Stops mkcd before writing to the DVD

Fill in the smit screen & F6 to see the command, then see man page for mkcd

Mike

"A foolproof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble, then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant."

http://www.airport-parking-site.co.uk/

 

[NickHodgson]

Un-successful I'm afraid, any other ideas? I'm sure this is possible as someone else has managed to do it on another thread, but unfortunately their instructions weren't detailed.

# /usr/sbin/mkcd -V 'rootvg' '-R' '-S'
Initializing mkcd log: /var/adm/ras/mkcd.log...
Verifying command parameters...
Creating image.data file...
Creating temporary file system: /mkcd/mksysb_image...
Creating mksysb image...

Creating list of files to back up..
Backing up 32665 files.................
32665 of 32665 files (100%)
0512-038 mksysb: Backup Completed Successfully.
Creating temporary file system: /mkcd/cd_fs...
Populating the CD or DVD file system...
Copying backup to the CD or DVD file system...

Building chrp boot image...
Creating temporary file system: /mkcd/cd_images...
crfs: 0506-909 /mkcd/cd_images file system already exists.
0512-300 mkcd: Error in routine: create_cd_images_fs.
Cleaning up...

Removing temporary file system: /mkcd/cd_fs...
Removing temporary file system: /mkcd/mksysb_image...

 

[mrn]

Get rid of the /mkcd/cd_images and try again

Mike

"A foolproof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble, then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant."

http://www.airport-parking-site.co.uk/

 

[hirschaj]

Getting back to basics...Is the DVD drive actually in your bootlist? You would check using the command "bootlist -m normal -o"


Jim Hirschauer

http://www.aixexpert.com

 

[NickHodgson]

The CD Drive is in the bootlist...
# bootlist -m normal -o
cd0

I then queried the DVD that I made yesterday, strangely this has a . at the end of the filename, whereas on my PC it doesn't:
# ls -l /cdrom
total 2133504
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root system 1092354048 Jun 08 05:48 cd__0001.

Then, following on from Mike's suggestion, I removed the mkcd folder, and filesystem:
# rm -r mkcd
# rmfs /mkcd/cd_images

I then tried the process again:


# mkcd -V 'rootvg' '-R' '-S'
Initializing mkcd log: /var/adm/ras/mkcd.log...
Verifying command parameters...
Creating image.data file...
Creating temporary file system: /mkcd/mksysb_image...
Creating mksysb image...

Creating list of files to back up.
Backing up 32665 files...
32665 of 32665 files (100%)
0512-038 mksysb: Backup Completed Successfully.
Creating temporary file system: /mkcd/cd_fs...
Populating the CD or DVD file system...
Copying backup to the CD or DVD file system...

Building chrp boot image...
Creating temporary file system: /mkcd/cd_images...
Creating Rock Ridge format image: /mkcd/cd_images/cd_image_44314.vol1
Running mkisofs ...
.....
mkrr_fs was successful.

Making the CD or DVD image bootable...

Copying the remainder of the backup to the CD or DVD file system...
Creating Rock Ridge format image: /mkcd/cd_images/cd_image_44314.vol2
Running mkisofs ...
.
mkrr_fs was successful.



Removing temporary file system: /mkcd/cd_fs...
Removing temporary file system: /mkcd/mksysb_image...


# cd /mkcd
# ls
cd_images
# cd cd_images
# ls
cd_image_44314.vol1 cd_image_44314.vol2 lost+found


As you can see, two files were created this time - I assume as I didn't specify DVD size. I ftp'd the first to my PC and burnt it to CD. I then popped it into the server and did a shutdown -Fr
When the server came up, it went into what appeared to be SMS mode. I selected the CD device as the boot device and then chose normal, however it complained that there was no O/S on the device.

Surely it can't be this complicated as others before me have got this working!

 

[mrn]

Can you post the output of

file cd_image_44314.vol1

Mike

"A foolproof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble, then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant."

http://www.airport-parking-site.co.uk/

 

[mrn]

Found this by googling for "aix" create bootable dvd


This works for me, even that i dont have dvd burner in the aix box, i just download to my laptop the image and make the dvd.

Make first mksysb:

mksysb -i -e -p /temp/mig/mksysb_hostname
-i bos.data image
-p software packing
-e exclude directories in /etc/exclude.rootvg

Make the dvd iso file from the mksysb
mkcd -m /temp/mig/mksysb_hostname -S -I /temp/mig -L

-m tell where is the mksysb generated
-S do not try to burn directly to the dvd drive, instead stop and let the iso in a dir
-I dir where the iso file is created
-L indicate that you want dvd images. Without, it create cd images.

* Temporal space you need:
/mkcd/cd_fs of 650M if making cd's
/mkcd/cd_fs of 4.3G if making DVD's.
This is created an erases automatically during process.


To do it in a single line, create mksysb, and use it to make dvd image:

mkcd -L '-e' -M '/temp/mig' -C '/temp/mig' -I '/temp/mig' -V 'rootvg' '-R' '-S'

Check man mkcd for the other flags.
Hope it helps.


Mike

"A foolproof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble, then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant."

http://www.airport-parking-site.co.uk/

 

[NickHodgson]

Sorry for the delay in responding, I've been struggling to get the box back up from this morning. Finally managed to get it to boot up, but still no joy on the CD front.

I'd set the boot order to be cd0, then hdisk0. I'd assumed (never assume!) that it would try cd0 and if it couldn't find a boot image then would move on to hdisk0, however it got to cd0, couldn't find a boot image and then fell into diagnostics.

If I mount the CD that I've burnt and do a file on it, it displays the following:

cd__0001.vol: data or International Language text

Did you do anything special to burn the CD/DVD on your PC? I'm using "RecordNow" software and doesn't really give any options when burning so I wonder if this is the problem?

Thanks

 

[p5wizard]

You need sth like nero software that is able to burn an ISO image file to a DVD-R. What you are burning is a DVD filesystem (UDFS I assume) with the ISO image file as a file on the DVD. That won't cut it.


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[DukeSSD]

Yeah, seems like you are just copying the file onto a DVD, not extracting the .iso to make a proper bootable CDFS / DVDFS? disk.

 

[NickHodgson]

Thanks p5wizard and Duke for your comments, can you elaborate on how to make this a bootable cd / dvd? I've downloaded a trial version of Nero 7 and can see an option to create a bootable CD or bootable DVD, but it seems I need to perform another step prior to burning to CD?

Presumably the Unix command have created the files ending in .volx but do I need to do anything else on the unix box, or is the rest of the work carried out in Nero, if so can you help to explain what I need to do?

Thanks again.

 

[p5wizard]

I don't have a DVD writer, so I can only choose CDROM options in Nero6, but I would assume you have to create a DVD(ISO) or DVD(UDF/ISO). I see the same options for CDROM(ISO) and CDR0M(UDF/ISO).

IMHO a CDROM(BOOT) or DVD(BOOT) in Nero is for DOS/Windows.

in short:
- use mkcd to create an ISO image file on AIX filesystem
- ftp/binary that over to your PC (you may have to rename the image file with an extension .iso)
- use nero to create a DVD(ISO) or DVD(UDF/ISO) DVD-R from that .iso file
- try to boot AIX box from that DVD-R


HTH,

p5wizard