AIX restore using mksysb tape

[cpu533]

Hi,

A quick question regarding the system restore.
We have a mksysb tape which ML is 5.2.7.
Our source machine is p650, the target machine is also p650. But system device schema is little different.
On our source machine, we have 2*146G disks to form the mirrored rootvg (Actually the used size is like 132G.). But on target machine we have 6 small disks (6*36G).
We are using AIX cd 5.2.8 and the mksysb tape and try to recovery the OS. However it failed. The technian in our DR site said the reason is if the ML is different between tape and OS CD, system will try to upgrade to latest ML and screw up the OS. Is that true???
Then he suggest we only use mksysb tape to restore the OS with 6*36G disks. The restore is successful. But the question is, according to IBM documents, you only can use the mksysb without OS CD to restore OS when the two machine is exactly same. In our case, the disk schema is different. Does anybody has idea?
To do a cloning, you have to use mksysb tape with OS CD.

Thanks for any advice.

Denny

 

[RodKnowlton]

I'm not sure if what the DR tech told you is a "set in concrete" rule, but it's certainly a best practice to have the ML of your mksysb and your install discs match. It seems like I've seen docs that claimed that the install discs could be the same or higher, but I'd only try it if I had no other choice.

The machines don't have to be identical in order to restore from mksysb without install CDs.

Devices on the target machine that require filesets not found on the source won't be configured. If these devices are critical to the boot process, then you have to have the matching install CDs to successfully restore.

For example, if your target machine was booting from a SCSI adapter for which the drivers weren't installed on the source, your mksysb wouldn't have restored.

- Rod


IBM Certified Advanced Technical Expert pSeries and AIX 5L
CompTIA Linux+
CompTIA Security+

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[cpu533]

Thanks Rod.

That is good practise.

Denny