AIX

Hi,

I am trying to backup a system ("client") through a slow network using "nim mksysb" on a nim server ("master")
The backup starts, but doesn't success.

Thanks if you can help me to resolve this problem :

Creating information file (/image.data) for rootvg...

Creating list of files to back up......
Backing up 156361 files..............................
4 of 156361 files (0%)..............................
...
22797 of 156361 files (14%)..............................
22808 of 156361 files (14%)..................
0512-005 savevg: Backup Completed.
The backup command completed with errors.
The messages displayed on Standard Error contained additional
information.
0042-001 nim : erreur de traitement détectée sur "master" :
0042-001 m_mkbosi : erreur de traitement détectée sur "client" :
backup: 0511-083 An internal packing error occurred: buffer overflow

This is a common problem. In the overwhelming majority it is due to a "Full/Half"-problem.

Background: AIX machines have an "Auto-Negotiation" setting for the network adapter. The adapter will come to life and the driver software will determine which speed the switchport does support and choose the best available. So far is the theory, and only that, alas. Fact is that in several cases this Auto-negotiation doesn't quite work and the adapter ends up using 100MBit-Full Duplex whereas the switchport uses 100MBit-Half Duplex (or vice versa). This will lead to a network connection which is good enough for a "ping" to get through (so it won't get noticed on a cursory check of the connection) but it will be slow enough for NIM thinking the connection is broken and terminating it.

Check if this is the case with either your NIM server or your client and maybe correcting this will correct your problem.

I hope this helps.

bakunin

Yes, it is setted to auto-negotiation. After a new try, backup did succeed.
I will set both servers into "full duplex" mode if this error will arrive again.