I suspect that what you have suggested will not work well. While the
configuration of many of the library and drive characteristics will be
carried across, the database, volume history, and log will not.  I assume
that you would install ADSM at 2.1.5.18 before overwriting
/usr/lpp/adsmserv. I would also take /usr/lpp/adsm.server.

What you will achieve is a partial system, that may not run well. You
certainly would not be able to use the resultant system with your existing
library.

I have done something similar what you are attempting, and found several
problems, none of which were insurmountable in our case. We were using the
same levels of AIX and ADSM as you.

What we were attempting to do was to create a second ADSM server to enable
us to time travel the server to confirm the behaviour of the server after
the millennium. In our case, it was not necessary to maintain the contents
of the database, as we were going to set up a new library.

What we did was to mksysb the system to tape, with the database and log
directories excluded from the mksysb image (this can be done with an
exclude file - see the mksysb manual page). We then installed this image
onto another system (in our case, we did it using the option when booted
from the CD-ROM, as the system hardware was not identical). This created a
clone of the system, with the database and log logical volumes created, but
empty. Please not that the ability to make a similar system using the
install CD and a mksysb tape did not work before AIX 4.2. It could be done
at AIX 4.1 but it was necessary to hack around with the /image.data file
before writing the mksysb image.

We found that the licences were not registered, so we re-registered the
licences (see the README in /usr/lpp/adsmserv). We reinitialized the
database and log files, but found that even though we had the dsmserv.sys
and dsmserv.opt files, that we had lost all device and library information.
Because we were using a different size of library, we decided to add the
library and drive information from scratch. Of course, because we had also
wiped the database, we had lost all domain, policy, management group,
copygroup, and storage pool information. Again, this was not too much of an
issue, as we were effectively starting from scratch anyway. Ditto node
information. While it would have been nice to keep some of this, the loss
could be worked around.

I suspect that if we had written the database and log volume information to
the tape, it would not have been necessary to reset any information, but if
we had done this, we would have had to used an identical library, with
identically labelled tapes. As we were using a 3575, which has unique tape
labels, this was not possible. If you are planning to use your real library
I would suggest that before you do anything, you shut down ADSM and do not
start it up again until the new server is constructed and attached to the
library.

If you are using a different library, but want to copy your library
contents. I suggest that you create copys of all of your storage pools, and
move the copies into the new library. Then, using the database from the old
library, proceed with the process detailed in the admin. manual for
restoring damaged primary storage pool volumes, by marking all of the
volumes as unavailable, and use the restore storagepool command. This
should re-make the primary storage pools from the copies. Beware that if
the pools are large, this will take a looooong time.

If you are licensed to use the disaster recovery manager, I suggest that
you read through the plan that is created when you run prepare. This gives
good information about what is necessary to do when re-constructing the
server. This information is equally useful if you are cloning the server.

Without knowing exactly what you wish to achieve, it is not possible to
give much more guidance. It is important to know whether you want to use
the same library, or whether you are starting from scratch with a new
library, or whether you want to clone the library contents as well.

If you want additional details, please write again, giving more idea of
your desired result.

Peter Gathercole
Open Systems Consultant

Cindy Ousley wrote:

> We are on AIX 4.2.1, ADSM 2.1.5.18, and are wanting to clone our
> production server to a test server.  Our plan is to tar
> /usr/adsm/lpp/adsmserv and then uncompress it on the test system.  Will
> this work?  Has anyone done this and been successful, if so, were there
> any problems caused by this that we need to be aware of?