AIX

Hi All,

1. I have many AIX system here but none of them has any CD writer. I want to buy external CD writer so I can move around when needed. Can some one tell me which one they have. Please let me know exact model number so it will be easy for me to order it. I tried going to IBM web site, after half hour I still can't find it.

2. I did mksysb and save the image to NFS drive. That image is not bootable. I don't have NIM server, is there any other way, to make that bootable?

You could boot with a normal CD/tape and then restore the saved mksysb image. But honestly, why you do not simply create a NIM server and be done eludes me. It will definitely be easier AND cheaper to do that than to have to shuffle around a DVD writer.

I hope this helps.

bakunin

OK, I guess I have no choice then to build NIM server. I don't know much about NIM, I guess I will learning NIM this weekend. :-). Thanks for your advise.

You might want to read this for a (very short) introduction to the operation of NIM.

I hope this helps.

bakunin

There is another option... assuming you are using AIX 5.3 or higher, and you can move files from your NFS server to your workstation that has a DVD burner you can do the following:

Clean up the /tmp folder and any other files you don't want as part of the backup on the system


(If you don't have the disk space to backup the system to itself, you can re-direct the backup file to a NFS share.)

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Part 1:

(Make a tmp folder and use that path)

mksysb -i -e -p /tmp/mig/mksysb_hostname

You will now be left with a large file in the /tmp/mig folder (or what ever you named the folder)

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Part 2
Make DVD iso images from the large file that mksysb made.
The second half of the job will split the backup file into DVD sized files (~3.5GB)


These new files will be in the following format: cd_image_XXXXX.volx


mkcd -m /tmp/mig/mksysb_hostname -S -I /tmp/mig -L


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What do these flags do?


-m tell where is the mksysb generated
-S do not try to burn directly to the dvd drive, instead stop and leave the iso in a dir
-I dir where the iso file is created
-L indicate that you want dvd images. Without, it create cd images.

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now that you have the .volx image files... you can delete the mksysb_hostname file.

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Part 3

move these DVD sized files to another machine that has a DVD Burner
ie. move them to your NFS share and then to you workstation


Rename these files to .iso and your burning software will let you burn the images

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The DVD's will now be bootable

Other things to note:

The HDD must be equal to or greater then the original HDD size. On the machine your about to put the image on, make sure you set it to boot from CD/DVD.
If the image is going on a blade server, make sure you are connected to the machine via SOL before you get started


You will get some errors after restoring like.... IP Address and hostname will be the same as the machine you imaged. if you run into this you can boot the machine in the the SMS menu and boot to Service Mode Boot and go into Single User Mode



Hope this helps