Restore complete AIX server to Different AIX server.

[mabdullah]

Hi,
our company planning to do full restore for one of our AIX server to another AIX server...its must be identical ...both servers has BA for AIX...

i have full backup for AIX1 and want to do full(systems files and Application) restore to another server called AIX2...

i dont know how to do that...and what do i need to accomplish this scenario ...

waiting for comments...

 

[nezih]

you can't do that with tsm ba client. use mksysb or nim to take bootable image backup of aix1 and boot aix2 with this boot image...

 

[mabdullah]

hi,

do you mean tsm cant do any recovery in this scenario ..and i have to use mksysb or nim to do the recovery??i need more explanation about mksysb & nim...

 

[nezih]

check this step by step explanation for creating bootable image backups with mksysb

http://adsm.org/forum/showthread.php?t=17131

 

[heada]

TSM can't restore a bootable AIX (or any system) image. It can restore all the files on the system but not make it bootable. You must first make a bootable system with either NIM or a mksysb and then TSM can restore all files.

-Aaron

 

[n9hmg]

heada: ALL files? I just got around to testing full TSM restores, and keep making unbootable systems. I'm thinking there's something I should have had in my inclexcl all along.

 

[mikeatkc]

TSM is not a bare-metal backup, ie. backup entire operating system and to boot off of, but rather a data management (backup) application. If you want to backup the entire system, especially boot sector (bare-metal), you need to use mksysb in AIX. Do a "man mksysb" at the unix prompt for syntax and don't forget IBM RedBooks documentation.

The below command is what I used to backup my system onto a 4mm tape, and if need be, I can boot off the 4mm tape and restore my entire system (at the OS level).

# mksysb -ei /dev/rmt0

 

[Efim]

Hi
You can use Tivoli Stoprage Manager for System Backup and Recovery (SysBack).
It is very simple to restore AIX from "metal" including disimilar hardware recovery.
You can do the backup to TSM with SysBack (only LVM information -several MB) and with TSM Client for other files.
You can boot from iso image (HMC can connect it) or with simple boot or with NIM and connect to TSM for restore LVM and data (with TSM Client which could be integrated to boot SysBack iso image) .
It works as expected.
Efim

 

[heada]

Use mksysb (or sysback) to create a bootable backup image of a system. You then restore that mksysb which will restore everything in the rootvg (unless you excluded it with special flags) Once the AIX OS has been restored, you then restore all non-OS files with TSM. You can restore OS files as well but they're not needed since the mksysb put those back for you already.

There are several redbooks that cover recovering an AIX server via mksysb/sysback/NIM.

-Aaron

 

[n9hmg]

Yeah, I'm a competent AIX admin, unless another 14 years would make a difference. There are just some things that I never had the opportunity or need to mess with. I always demanded that everything but the base operating system be on separate volume groups or in /etc/exclude.rootvg, and a mksysb taken after every OS change.

I'm asking about what is safe to restore over the system. I restore a mksysb and then try to catch it up with TSM, which makes a non-bootable system. I can specific things - bring back installed programs by restoring /usr, though they are no longer managed as packages - restore users by restoring various files under /etc, and so on. What I'd like to do is recover the system with mksysb and then restore over that with TSM.
I've been testing cautiously so far - cloning rootvg and then restoring TSM over THAT so I have a quick return of the test system by changing bootlist, but when I do that, alt_disk_install pukes when I try to put the alt_rootvg back to sleep... actually exports the alt_rootvg and leaves the alt_whatever dev files as orphans, requiring manual deletion of objects under /dev(eek!) in order to be able to re-try the alt_disk_install).
I'm thinking maybe excluding the dynamic part of the ODM might do it.... overwrite everything else and generate a new boot image based on the new driver files (bosboot).
I'm surprised I can't find any "cookbook"-style documentation to enable full system restore after bare metal restore.

 

[heada]

A mksysb restore and then reinstall lpp/rpm packages. I wouldn't try and have TSM update anything that would normally be kept in the ODM as TSM isn't ODM aware. It will only break those apps or AIX. Avoid /etc/objres like the plague as that is your ODM. I also wouldn't touch /bin or /sbin and only config files in /etc. I have found that as long as you force users/applications to not install anything in the rootvg or if they are, to their own filesystem then a simple mksysb works 99.9% of the time. With a weekly mksysb image and NIM, we can have a system totally rebuilt and ready for a data restore in about 30 minutes.

There is a 3rd party product by EMC (used to be Indigo Stone) called HomeBase that will do bare metal restores and then bring a system up to date with TSM but since it is ODM aware, it can do it without trashing the system. It also works with Windows, Linux and Solaris (not sure about HP-UX) It is also application aware so it works with AD apps like Exchange and AD controllers. It is kind of like NIM but a cross-platform NIM and it works with dissimilar hardware.

-Aaron

 

[n9hmg]

Thanks, Heada. That is the sort of direction I was looking. /usr/local included, all the rest of /usr excluded. Probably safe to include /etc if objrepos is excluded. /var to catch printer configurations, etc.. exclude.rootvg for non-OS installations.
I'm going to have to script up a lot of "delete backup".

While we're thinking about this: how about the same issue on HP-UX?

 

[mabdullah]

HI,

i used mksysb and boot my second server AIX2 from this image and got it right..now i need to restore my data and application from TSM..i used GUI and choose the FS which i want to restore then i redirect them to the second server AIX2..it seems working fine but it stop with message(Disk is Full)!!!!!
i'm sure AIX2 has enough disk space...i did he restore again but instead of choosing my FS togther i choose them one by one...but still get the same message(Disk is FULL)!!!!

can some one tell me why i'm getting this error???

 

[flydiver]

You definitely cannot restore over /usr/lib/objrepos or /etc/objrepos. I'd be careful of a lot of files in /etc, and if you've applied any updates or added new files since your full system backup, then /usr/ccs, /usr/lib, /usr/lib/boot can be a problem. You can just wipe out anything in /dev that you restored and run "cfgmgr" to recover devices, then create a link from /dev/ipldevice to your boot disk before running a "bosboot -a" to update the boot logical volume. If you're using "multibos", then even mksysb has problems restoring, several IBM PMR's for this - info in the /etc/multibos(?) directory has to match the data they store in the logical volume headers.

Take a look at the TSM product from Storix (storix.com/tsm), which will backup/restore the entire OS to/from the TSM server (including non-rootvg data is optional). It basically does everyting a mksysb (or Sysback) and NIM would do, but much more automated and you can change the config on the fly to restore to different hardware.

 

[mikeatkc]

HI,

i used mksysb and boot my second server AIX2 from this image and got it right..now i need to restore my data and application from TSM..i used GUI and choose the FS which i want to restore then i redirect them to the second server AIX2..it seems working fine but it stop with message(Disk is Full)!!!!!
i'm sure AIX2 has enough disk space...i did he restore again but instead of choosing my FS togther i choose them one by one...but still get the same message(Disk is FULL)!!!!

can some one tell me why i'm getting this error???

At the unix prompt, try the below command in the directory or file system that you are restoring to:

# ulimit -f unlimited;ulimit -d unlimited

Do "man ulimit" for more information. Basically, it might be an AIX file system quota/limit that you need to overcome.

 

[n9hmg]

Well - this one had me really thinking.

I've done some testing, and the results were disappointing when I tried a timid approach, but casually doing everything wrong brought good results.

I built a system, very basic, aix 5.2ml4.
Then I duplicated it via alt_disk_install, and made sure the copy was good.
Then I upgraded to ml7, and added a whole slew of other software.
Then I backed it up to TSM.
Then I booted to the original minimal system.
I forgot how big the filesystems had been expanded to in the installation, so I temporarily woke up the altinst_rootvg to get the sizes, then put that back to sleep and resized my filesystems. I should have just queried filespace.
Then, for each filesystem, I ran a restore (in a script).
I tried to bosboot after the restore, but of course the ODM was somewhat confused about what disks were in the currently varied-on VG.
So, WTH, I rebooted. It came up, and having done the savebase and all, the ODM was clean. bosboot cleared up the error messages for the next boot, and everything installed and upgraded on the other copy of the install was present and working correctly on this one.


I'd started out cautiously, by doing alt_disk_install and then trying to restore into that, but the ODM changes applied there by alt_disk_install failed when I tried to finish the process, causing the whole altinst_rootvg to disappear, except for some defunct device files.

 

[mabdullah]

hi,
my restoration was perfect now..i used mksysb in my second server(AIX2)...and then use this command :
#dsmc rest –fromnode=node1 –subdir=yes “/(FS on node1)/*” /(FS on node2)/

I did it for each FS and it was working fine.now AIX2 is identical to AIX1.