Restore mksysb from NFS share....How? 1

[ksas025]

I would like to automate my mksysb's and implement a tapeless/CDless backup scheme. To do this I figured I would write a script to mksysb a file to an NFS share on a storage server.

This seems easy enough but I am unsure how I would restore these files if I needed to. Can anyone help shed some light on this? I have read in a couple of places that a NIM server is the answer but how do I serve mksysb files from a NIM master? Are there any onther ways to restore a non-bootable mksysb backup over the network?

AIX ver=4.3.3

Thanks

Alex

 

[brumme]

Hi.

The olly way I know is using NIM server. And you "just" create a ressource "mksysb" that point to your image.

But If you have a AIX 5.3 NIM server you have a lot more posabilities.

/HGA

 

[jprabaker]

The mksysb is just a backup image, so if you only want specific files you can use the restore command.

To restore the image onto a system you'll need to use NIM to enable the client to boot over the network.

 

[mag007]

Actually, you can do it without a NIM server.

Mount your NFS share (which has your mksysb image)

Do, smitty alt_clone

 

[ksas025]

I would like to revisit this now that I have time to attempt it....

I have successfully mksysb'd my client machine via SMIT to an NFS share. My NIM master has the same share mounted so it has access to the new mksysb just created.

I attempted to create a mksysb resouce on my NIM master and I recevied the following error:

0042-001 nim: processing error encountered on "master": 
   0042-001 m_mkbosi: processing error encountered on "master": 
   0042-175 c_cklevel: An unexpected result was returned by the "/usr/lpp/bos.sysmgt/nim/methods/c_stat" command: 
 
0042-150 c_stat: the file "/mnt/enasa/CODC_mksysb" has a vfstype of 18.  This conflicts with 
        the expected vfstype, which is one of the following: 
                3

My first thought was that mksysb resouces could not use NFS shares. If I new what vfstype 18 and 3 were I might be able to verify this. Nevertheless, I am stuck at making the mksysb resource on my master and I am not sure how to continue. Any ideas?

By the way, thanks for all the replies so far!

Alex

 

[ksas025]

Well, I moved the mksysb image from the NFS share to a local directory on my NIM master and the resource created successfully. This is really disappointing; anyone know a way around this?

 

[khalidaaa]

Here is the answer:

The mksysb image should only be created on local directories not on NFS mounts!

http://unix.ittoolbox.com/groups/te...running-out-of-space-on-my-nim-server-498069#

Regards,
Khalid

 

[ksas025]

Thanks khaildaa (you must be a better googler than me . This info really throws a monkey wrench in my operation. Since I dont have sufficient space on my NIM server for all my mksysb's I am forced to store the mksysb's on a third server and copy individual images over when restoration is needed.

 

[khalidaaa]

oh yeah it seems the case

Good luck

 

[p5wizard]

The reason behind this is that a NIM server needs to export the filesystem containing lppsource, mksysb, ... for a NIM client to be able to use it.

So yes, a NIM server needs to store its files on local (JFS or JFS2) filesystems. Arguably it could also be a GPFS network filesystem, as I believe that GPFS filesystems can also be NFS-exported, but NIM is unaware of this fact AFAIK.

So yes you need a lot of local storage or you make do with the overhead of copying over the mksysb files from networked storage to local storage whenever you need...


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[mag007]

I am 100% certain you can do a smit alt_mksysb, and select your target disk, device or image name will be /nfsmount/mksysb-image

and done

I do this, not sure if its conventional...but does the trick

 

[ksas025]

I dont think alt_mksysb is included in AIX 4.3.3. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Thanks.

 

[mag007]

Not 100% sure if the smitty fast path exists on 4.3.3, however this will still work if you have alt_disk_install filests installed.

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/aix/cmds/aixcmds1/alt_disk_install.htm#A042298bcl

The -d option lets you specify where your mksysb image is...

HTH