NIM installation for backup 1

[bonsky]

guys,
i need refrences on how to properly install NIM for me to do system backup to another machine . Hope you can gimme a good advice wheres the URl.. thanks alot.. just need it badly.. how can i configure this fella... ooppss.. im using AIX 5.2-06.. thanks!

 

[mrn]

Can you explain exactly what your trying to do & why?

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/

 

[bonsky]

i just want to setup a NIM server and client.. .so that i can do backup via nim..any good refrence for this?

 

[Breslau]

coincidently, i was looking for the same thing since we're sunsetting our SP in the near future and want to replicate that portion of pssp.

found a redbook, but it was for aix 4, and crashed my browser when i tried to download it. you do have the option of going through the command documetation since it's part of aix... but a consie cookbook would be nicer...

 

[mrn]

But why use nim? is what I'm getting at. Can you not backup to 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/

 

[Breslau]

For us, to have a mksysb image to restore from in case of disaster. yes, this can be done from tape, but with the number of servers we have it's more cost effective and less time consuming to do it from a nim box.

 

[DSMARWAY]

hi

see

http://publib16.boulder.ibm.com/pseries/en_US/infocenter/base/aix51.htm

good redbook tells you step by step

basically run smit eznim

( this creates you lpp source and exports directory
source is there if you want to install software on clients / updates and export/spot for bootable images i.e. if your clients are diskless workstations and /export/eznim
in here you'll have mksysb directories

( note when you run smitty eznim , run it from your master
here select defaults )

on the clients run smitty eznim and configure them as clients

On the server /export/eznim spot lpp_source filesytems will be created
make sure the master can communicate with the clients i.e. can rlogin to the servers etc..

Then to run a mksysb , from the NIM Master rin smitty eznim
select backup client ( if setup correctly you'll see a list of the clients setup) select a client and give your image a name and the mksysb runs

NOTE:- before you install / configure NIM make sure bos.sysmgt.nim.master is installed from CD of AIX cd's

( you can also run smit nim, to view options in detail )

hope this gives you a start

 

[bonsky]

thanks alot.. we will take alook at the redbook then.

Just like mentioned, in an AIX farm, it is more cost effective to make use of this procedure via NIM. As i believe tape is still the best solution but it varies from case to case. Thanks alot for all your help.

 

[columb]

Just because....
I've got a perl script which runs on our nim master and keeps backup mksysb images writtin in perl. It's a bit short on comments (!) but it keeps two ($max_gen) geneartions of mksysb from each of our servers and it updates them every 12 ($min_age) days. In the event of needing a bare metal restore we can simply do a network install from the latest of these images.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
 
$d_name="/export/mksysb/";
$min_age=12;
$max_gen=2;
$secs_in_day = 60 * 60 * 24;
$now = int ((time)/($secs_in_day));
(undef,undef,undef,$day,$month,$year,undef,undef,undef)=localtime(time);
$dstring = sprintf "%2.2d%2.2d%2.2d", $year % 100, $month + 1, $day;
$extn = "_[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]";
 
sub backup;
sub housekeep;
 
HOSTLOOP: for my $hostname (`lsnim -t standalone | cut -f 1 -d ' '`)
  {
  $hostname =~ /^b02201$/ and next;
  print "Checking $hostname";
  chomp $hostname;
  for ( glob "$d_name$hostname$extn" ) 
    { 
    next HOSTLOOP if ($now - int(((stat($_))[9])/($secs_in_day)) < $min_age );
    }
  backup $hostname;
  my @flist = glob "$d_name$hostname$extn";
  housekeep $hostname if @flist > $max_gen;
  }
 
sub backup 
  {
  my $hostname = shift;
  system "nim -F -o define -t mksysb -a server=master -a mk_image=yes "
    ."-a mksysb_flags=ei -a source=${hostname} "
    ."-a location=$d_name${hostname}_$dstring ${hostname}_$dstring";
  system "rcp ${hostname}:/bosinst.data ${d_name}${hostname}_bosinst_data_$dstring" and return;
  system "nim -o define -t bosinst_data -a server=master ".
    "-a location=${d_name}${hostname}_bosinst_data_$dstring ".
    "${hostname}_bosinst_data_$dstring";
  }
 
sub housekeep 
  {
  my $hostname = shift;
  (glob "$d_name$hostname$extn")[0] =~ /(\d{6})/ and my $date = $1;
  for ( "_", "_bosinst_data_" )
    {
    system "nim -o remove $hostname$_$date";
    system "rm $d_name$hostname$_$date";
    }
  }

Columb Healy