Remove AIX operating system

[mango01]

I have 2 old servers running on AIX 4.3.3 to retire and need to remove the operating system - how can I do this?

 

[RodKnowlton]

If they're PCI systems, you could take a look at Yellow Dog Linux, but I have to ask:

Why do you want to remove the operating system?

Are you tossing the servers in a dumpster and don't want any data released?

If that's the case, the safest thing to do is physically remove all of the hard drives and destroy them or have them destroyed. Our off-site storage vendor also provides a certified physical destruction service (you'd better believe we always fill THEIR paperwork out correctly ). You can probably find a similar service where you are.

It can be cathartic to take a sledgehammer to them yourself, but don't forget to wear protective clothing and goggles.

Rod Knowlton
IBM Certified Advanced Technical Expert pSeries and AIX 5L

 

[mango01]

I need to remove the O/S because we are selling the servers along with other old equipment. We are removing all software prior to the sell. We are selling the hardware as is, but I wanted to remove the O/S. One is an E20, the other is a PowerPC.

 

[RodKnowlton]

Boot into Maintenance Mode using a mksysb or product CD, select "Access volume group and start shell before mounting filesystems" (or words to that effect), and then rmfs to your heart's delight.

The software may still be there afterwards, in some technical sense, but recovering it would cost more than buying a new license of AIX.



Rod Knowlton
IBM Certified Advanced Technical Expert pSeries and AIX 5L

 

[spamly]

To take Rod's procedure a step further, you could always create new volume groups over the original and create striped filesystems. Fill up these filesystes with some worthless data (like info from the product CD). That should effectively overwrite everything.

When you're finished, remove the filesytems and then the volume group.

What do you gurus think?

 

[screwloose]

The safest way is to find a secure deletion utility that writes random zeros and ones a number of times. I don’t recall the name of a free utility that I found at my last job that was used for DR testing, but just search for it. For highest security it should meet DOD standards.

 

[Chapter11]

Or: Take the drives out, put them into another AIX box, create a VG and fill it with trash.

 

[Yegolev]

if you just don't want it to boot anymore, my favorite is:

yes>/dev/ipldevice

if you don't want the secret eleven-herbs-and-spices getting out, keep the disks and physically destroy the platters. software solutions are usually half-ass.

IBM Certified -- AIX 4.3 Obfuscation

 

[RodKnowlton]

if you don't want the secret eleven-herbs-and-spices getting out, keep the disks and physically destroy the platters. software solutions are usually half-ass.

Especially when dealing with systems containing journaled filesystems and paging space. The author of the "shred" utility expressly states that it won't give the protection desired on JFS.

Not to mention that the recovery of physically overwritten data has been demonstrated (of course, it requires a scanning electron microscope.).

I'll second Yegolev (and myself). If you don't want the data to get out, the best combination of cost and effectiveness, by far, is to remove the drives and physically destroy them or store them securely.

Rod Knowlton
IBM Certified Advanced Technical Expert pSeries and AIX 5L

 

[TJmike]

Just login as root then do this command - rm *

Then swith off the machine. Your problem is done.

 

[mrn]

No rm * won't work as you could recover data via inode, the only way to truly remove data is to follow screwloose's rec.


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."

 

[WiccaChic]

Pass big kitchen magnets over all of your drives...

 

[nani3456]

Friends,
Does this works out

reducevg -df rootvg hdisk0

 

[mrn]

Try this

Scrub

http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/ToolsUnixGeneral.html#scrub

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."