restoring Filesystem after changing to Large File Enabled

[rotech22]

I recently upgraded my mirrored disks from 9 to 18GB. When I tried to copy files greater than 2GB I discovered the original file systems set up in the VG weren't set for Large File Enabled.

Reading other threads, it looks like I need to remove the filesystems from the disk and recreate them with Large File Enbaled set to True, then restore the filesystems from backup tape.

Forgiving my newbie description, is that basic premise true, that I can't enable large files on the existing setup?

Any 'gotcha's' to look out for in backing up/restoring the filesystems onto the larger disks? Could I just run a savevg and restore the whole VG on that disk?

Any and all help appreciated!

Roger

 

[tboege]

You are right about what to do. Savevg does save the metadata (structure) as well, thus it might be easier for you to use a simple tar (if not using any ACL functionallity at all).

What I'd do is:
- mount a filesystem via NFS from another server
- tar cpvf /nfsmount/mydata.tar /yourvg/*
- umount and rmfs all filesystems from that VG
- recreate them using jfs2 or large file enabled jfs
- restore using tar xpvf from your file

If you ARE using ACLs you can not use the tar command w/o loosing the ACLs. Thus you'd need to use backup/restore (which is more or less a tar+ACL support) or a savevg (but then you need to restore the file using the restore command and not restvg which would try to restore the structure as well)...

Hope that helps.

 

[rotech22]

Thanks tboege. In my case, this is the only AIX server I have. So I would do a backup of each LV to tape? I'm familiar with using find and piping to backup, and I know there are couple of instances of backup in smit. Can you help with detailed backup instructions? If it matters, this is AIX 5.1.
What parameters do I need to note about the existing filesystems in order to re-create them?

In my windows world, ACL means access control list. What does it mean here?

Thanks again for the input.

 

[RodKnowlton]

If you've got enough unallocated disk space, there's a much safer way to do this.

- create a jfs2 filesystem (we'll call it newfs) with attributes to match a filesystem that needs to be replaced and a different mount point
- mount the new filesystem
- using the method of your choosing (rsync, cpio, tape, etc...) duplicate the old filesystem's contents in the new filesystem.
- unmount both filesystems
- chfs -m /oldfs.bak /oldfs
- chfs -m /oldfs /newfs
- mount /oldfs (which is now the new version)
- confirm that all went well, then....
- rmfs /oldfs.bak

I'd recommend rsync for the copying. If it's not installed already, it's available in the AIX Linux Toolbox.

Rod Knowlton

IBM Certified Advanced Technical Expert pSeries and AIX 5L
CompTIA Linux+
CompTIA Security+