mirroring rootvg with aix 5.1

[wab62]

Hello, having a problem with aix 5.1 (oslevel -r says 5100-04). have 2 18 gb drives in rootvg. want to mirror rootvg. understand that i need to use bosboot for the blv on the second disk (hdisk1). but when i run,

bosboot -a -d /dev/hdisk1

i get the following error:

bosboot: Boot image is 13441 512 byte blocks.

0301-162 bosboot: savebase failed with /dev/hdisk1.

0301-165 bosboot: WARNING! bosboot failed - do not attempt to boot device.

Any thoughts?

 

[ogniemi]

have you used "mirrorvg" (including syncvg) command before executing bosboot?

After mirrorvg for rootvg is completed you'll get instruction what to do next. (syncvg), bosboot and bootlist.


r, m.

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

Hi wab62,

I got this from IBM support :

Mirroring the rootvg Volume Group for AIX Versions 4.3.3 and 5

This document specifies the supported method for mirroring the rootvg volume group to provide high availability access of the AIX operating system. There are four steps required in mirroring rootvg:

1. Mirror rootvg using mirrorvg or mklvcopy.
2. Make the new mirrored disk bootable by running bosboot.
3. Add the new mirrored disk to the bootlist.
4. Reboot the system to disable quorum.

This function is not supported on /usr client, diskless client, or dataless client systems.

This document is only valid for AIX Versions 4.3.3 and 5.
Why mirror the rootvg volume group?
Procedure
Known problems
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why mirror the rootvg volume group?

Mirroring the rootvg volume group is important because:

o Maintaining an active mirrored copy of the rootvg volume on another disk
ensures continuous operation of the AIX operating system in the event that
a disk that is part of the operating system experiences failure.
o Such maintenance provides the ability to boot more than one disk of the
rootvg in the event that another boot disk has failed. In some cases, the
ability to boot from alternate disks may require some user intervention.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Procedure

1. To mirror the entire contents of rootvg volume group, use the mirrorvg
command. Assuming rootvg is on hdisk0 and that hdisk1 is the physical
volume to mirror to, use the following syntax:

mirrorvg rootvg hdisk1

You will receive a message similar to:

0516-1124 mirrorvg: Quorum requirement turned off, reboot system for
this
to take effect for rootvg.
0516-1126 mirrorvg: rootvg successfully mirrored, user should perform
bosboot of system to initialize boot records. Then, user must
modify
bootlist to include: hdisk1 hdisk0.

If user has user-created logical volumes in rootvg and does not want to
mirror those, the mklvcopy command may be used instead to mirror only the
standared rootvg logical volumes, such as hd1, hd2, hd3, hd4, hd5, hd6,
hd8, hd9var and hd10opt at AIX V5. Syntax of mklvcopy is as follows:

mklvcopy LVname 2 hdisk1

If user has other paging devices, in addition to hd6, it is recommended to
mirror those as well.

If hd5 consists of more than one logical partition, then, after mirroring
hd5, the user must verify that the mirrored copy of hd5 resides on
contiguous physical partitions. This can be verified with the following
command:

lslv -m hd5

If the mirrored hd5 partitions are not contiguous, the user must delete
the mirror copy of hd5 (on hdisk1) and rerun the mklvcopy command for hd5,
using the -m option. The user should consult documentation on the usage of
the -m option for the mklvcopy command.

If rootvg is mirrored using mklvcopy command, the user must manually
synchronize the partitions and disable quorum.

syncvg -v rootvg =>will synchronize all stale partitions
chvg -Qn rootvg =>will disable quorum

2. To initialize the boot record, run the following:

bosboot -ad /dev/hdisk1

3. To modify the bootlist, run the following:

bootlist -m normal hdisk0 hdisk1

NOTE: If the system is booted via network, you may need to include the
ent# in the bootlist.

WARNING: Even though this command identifies the list of possible boot
disks, it does not guarantee that the system will boot from the alternate
disk in all cases involving failures of the first disk. In such
situations, it may be necessary for the user to boot from the installation
or maintenance media: select Maintenance, reissue the bootlist command
leaving out the failing disk, and then reboot. On some models, firmware
provides a utility for selecting the boot device at boot time. This may
also be used to force the system to boot from the alternate disk.
4. Reboot system to disable quorum, by running either one of the following
commands:

reboot

or

shutdown -Fr


greetz

R.