AIX

Hi All,

Working on AIX 4.2 system. On this server there is no tape drive or a DVD Writer attached to the AIX box.
I was able to do mksysb, but I got warning message saying it will not be bootable.

On the new system, I did install 5.3 and now I need to restore this mksysb image from the old system. How do I do that?

Thanks for your help.

You can write your MKSYSB over NFS to another system. You can boot from that image and restore if over the network if you set up a NIM master.

NIM=network installation manager. This is included in the AIX software. - smitty nim

But not with these levels.
There is no machine that will support both AIX 4.2 and AIX 5.3.
If you have AIX 4.2.1 you can restore it to a 7025-F50 or a 7026-H50 but there are no other machines that will support both AIX 5.3 and AIX 4.2.x
Everything after the F/H50 requires at least AIX 4.3.
You should be able to recover data from the mksysb but you won't be able to boot another 5.3 capable system from it.
If you just need to transfer some data to the newer machine it would be easier to move it over the network.

I can confirm that, you have to update the old system from aix 5.3 cd, you say you have no writer, do you have a cd/dvd drive at all?

put in the aix5.3 cd, and choose "update existing installation"

install the latest fixpacks (AIX 5.3 TL 7 for Power 6)

then take a mksysb image from the updated system and install it anywhere else from nim-server

there is always a risk that your application wont run with the new AIX-Version

I made a typo, AIX server I am trying to upgrade is running 4.3.1.0.

On the AIX server, I don't have any DVD writer. But on the windows server and Sun Solaris, I do have DVD writer. I don't think I can NFS the DVD drive? Any way, I will try to setup the NIM server. We already tested the application works on AIX 5.3. Just trying to find the fastest and easiest solution to upgrade the old server.

OK, 4.3.1 still leaves a pretty narrow window of machines that will support this and 5.3.

What is the new system?
prtconf |head
command will show this.

While you are at it, what is the old machine?

You might still be able to update the 4.3.1 machine to 4.3.3 from fix central but I doubt it.
You have probably left it too long to do this update without major pain.

In fact the only machine that supports 4.3.1 and 5.3, other than the F/H50, is the 7017-S70.

Unless you have one of these three to migrate to 5.3 you are probably stuck.

You might be able to do it with a few days of running alt_disk_'command' combinations, good luck.