AIX

I have several systems which require software maintenance several times a year. After the software maintenance, it is required that we make two system tapes for DR purposes. The creation of these system tapes takes anywhere from 1-1.5 hours because of the performance of the tape drives. What I would like to do is create the an image file on the local hard disk that I can then move off to a server where they can be archived or copied to a tape from there so I can have the production system come back online sooner.

Hello

I think one option could be from the NIM.

IBM Redbooks | NIM from A to Z in AIX 5L


I hope can help you


Greetings

I need to know how to do it without NIM.

Hey

I think NIM is the best option but you could do bootable DVD's. Just use the "mksysb" command to create a mksysb image to disk. Then at a later stage us the "mkcd" command to create the bootable DVD from the mksysb image on disk. There are a couple of tweaks you might need to do to the image.data file if your rootvg is mirrored. I use a NIM script to create the mksysb images of multiplue systems. Then I keep my NIM at the same level as the rest of the systems and create the bootable DVD's from the NIM.

Hope that helps

I need to create an image file that can be written to a tape, not a CD or DVD.

I believe you are after something like:

1. Generate the mksysb image file:
# mksysb -i /mksysb_images/node1

2. SCP the image to the desired host.

3. Copy the image file to tape:
# dd if=/mksysb_images/node1 of=/dev/rmt0 bs=512

Might wanna test it out first.

This procedure will most likely not work because mksysb, when it doesn't write to a tape, does not include the boot image into the mksysb file. By copying this non-booting file to a CD (DVD, any other medium) nothing is gained because the missing boot image won't reappear.

The only way to get a mksysb image which can be directly booted is to write directly to a tape.

If you can only create a image file you can boot this by using a floppy disk or something similar to provide the boot image and use this to boot off the image file.

Alternatively you can use a NIM server, where the mksysb image file will also be stored in non-booting form, but the NIM server provides the boot image (analogous to what would be on the said floppy) over the network as a NIM resource.

I hope this helps.

bakunin