mksysb info

[7280]

Hi,
on my aix system I'm using mksysb as backup.
This makes an image of the whole rootvg.
Of course it can be used in case of an unrecoverable crash. But can this used in case of minor loss? Let's say an /etc file is deleted, can this be extracted from the mksysb or I need to implement other backups. Is this case what files do I need to backup:
- /etc/passwd
- /etc/group
- etc/filesystems
- /home for users environment
Is there a simple way to "export" my configuration? (users, password, environments, network, filesystem....)
Of course I need to do this if mksysb is not enough.

Thanks in advance

 

[KenCunningham]

mksysb is essentially a tar file. See the files saved by it using:

tctl -f/dev/rmt0.1 fsf 3
tar -tvf/devrmt0.1

if necessary replacing rmt0 with whatever your drive is configured as. HTH.


All I ask of you
Is make my wildest dreams come true

 

[7280]

Greate, so it seems it's enough.
Now I'm backupping on a filesystem, not on tape.
Is mksysb also bootable?
I'm using command: mksysb -e -i -X -p bkp-mksysb
So if I loose one file I can just extract it with tar xf, right?

Thanks again

 

[KenCunningham]

Sorry, I seem to have mislead you. Apparently backup is now used to create the mksysb, so to recover a specific file, you would:

tctl fsf 3
$ restore -xvf /dev/rmt0.1 ./your/file/name

My apologies for the confusion!!

All I ask of you
Is make my wildest dreams come true

 

[khalidaaa]

mksysb backups are always bootable but in your case (filesystem mksysb backups) i think you will find difficulties to boot from this image you created.

by using what KenCunningham said above, you will be able to extract any data on the mksysb (if the mksysb is on tape)

In your case, this command above will be (taking the example that you want to recover /etc/passwd file):

$ restore -xvqf bkp-mksysb ./etc/passwd

or

$ restore -xvqf bkp-mksysb /etc/passwd

from my experience with restoring files, sometimes you need to specify the "." before the file you want to restore and sometimes not!

If you still want to boot from this image you created on the filesystem you can use NIM master server and store these images on the NIM master better.

Refer to this link for more details on NIM:

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/aix/aixins/aixnimgd/toc.htm

Regards,
Khalid

 

[7280]

Hi,
thanks both for your responses.
Can NIM be installed on a windows/linux server?
But in this way I have another server to manage.
Isn't it better to just make this image bootable? After mksysb I'm creating the dvd iso image (mkcd -L). This should be bootable, right?

Thanks,
Tarek

 

[jstacey]

Why don't you just do a

mkcd -d /dev/cd0 -L

And burn your mksysb straight to DVD.
If you don't have enough space in rootvg you can use the -V flag to specify a vg with enought space.

This would allow you to easily restore a Machine/LPAR then mount a CIFS share to restore your other volume groups.

HTH
Jeff

 

[khalidaaa]

What my friend jstancey said was better in your case!

NIM usually used if you have more than on server to backup but if you have only this server then why do you have to backup to disk first then to dvd? why not directly to the dvd as what jstacey listed above!

Regards
Khalid

 

[7280]

Hi,
I have 4 ibm servers running aix 5.3, two with ml2 and two with ml4.
My backups now are mksysb + mkcd for all servers.
And for non rootvg vg I'm using savevg.
So in order to restore I need to copy iso images to dvd and then boot.
I was just wondering if it was possible to boot the mksysb file directly from the windows server, however it's ok.
Thanks all,