Re: Restoring from mksysb

From: Ulrich--nO--(dot)-sPAM--Link (_at_Epost.de)
Date: 10/20/03 

Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 14:24:26 +0200

Joe MacDonald wrote:
> I have an RS6000 F50-7025 that currently has a 4GB SCSI boot disk
> (rootvg). I'm going to replace it with a 9GB disk. I plan to restore
> from an mksysb tape. I've never done this before. How difficult is
> the restoration process from mksysb? Is there anything I should know
> before diving in? I'm making the tape with the command:
>
> mkszfile -f'' && mksysb '/dev/rmt0.1'

you can get the same with a single command:
"mksysb -i /dev/rmt0"

man mksysb

> What's the best procedure for booting off this tape? By using
> bootlist(1)?

service mode bootlist should contain rmt before hdisk0

>
> What exactly happens when you boot off an mksysb tape? Does it just
> ask you if you want to restore, and then begins the process? Should I
> know the SCSI ID of the disk I'm installing to? Anything like that?
> Are there any sort of gotchas I should be aware of?

System boots from tape, you can then change the target disk from the
default. The default is the disk at the location where the mksysb was made.

Tip: if your tape is capable of hardware compression (as almost every
modern tape drive) disable the software packing with "-p" switch of the
mksysb command.

Simply run mksysb and boot from the tape. You'll be surprised how simple
this can be. 

---
Uli

Relevant Pages

  • Re: copy mksysb to tape
    ... Use Storix instead of mksysb. ... then later copy them to a remote tape drive. ... to tape and from tape to disk, ...
    (comp.unix.aix)
  • Re: AIX 4.3.3 Disaster Recovery
    ... On reasonably new hardware restoring from mksysb ... Another option would be to mirror rootvg and break the mirrors. ... then be able to access the rootvg on the "other" disk on a second machine. ... > restore the data from tape. ...
    (comp.unix.aix)
  • Re: couple of mksysb restore questions
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    (AIX-L)
  • Re: couple of mksysb restore questions
    ... You can see more information on exactly what is happening in the mksysb if you ... couple of mksysb restore questions ... I don't think this is a tape block size issue. ... The mksysbs were created with a blocksize of 0. ...
    (AIX-L)
  • Re: mksysb restore asks for volume 1 on /dev/rmt0.1
    ... Generally speaking (that is, in my 10 years experience as AIX SA), it's ... The savevg is typically done via ... "mksysb" type backups, I'm not sure I'd EVER trust a "mksysb" image made ... TAR tape one day and a mksysb tape the next day. ...
    (comp.unix.aix)