Unix Backup and Recovery

Chapter 12. AIX

This chapter explains the procedure that you would use to recover your IBM AIX operating system disk in case of a complete system failure—when you are left with nothing but bare metal. For suggestions on how to avoid this situation, please read the first section of Chapter 7.

IBM was the first Unix vendor to deliver a true bare-metal recovery tool. The following are the tools and products that are available to perform a bare-metal recovery of an AIX system:

• The mksysb command makes a complete “bootable” backup of the root volume group (rootvg ) only.

• Sysback is a combination of scripts written by IBM that expands the functionality of mksysb. Sysback allows backups of multiple volume groups (VGs) on one tape. It also allows backup on remote tapes to a Sysback backup server.

The homegrown bare-metal recovery method discussed in Chapter 7 does not work for AIX, since there is no AIX equivalent to installboot.

Tip

This chapter was written by Charles Gagnon and Brian Jensen of Collective Technologies. Charles specializes in installing, configuring, and maintaining heterogeneous environments. Brian has been administering both AIX and heterogeneous environments for several years. Charles may be reached at [e-mail], and Brian may be reached at [e-mail].

IBM’s mksysb Utility

The basis for a bare-metal recovery of an AIX system is the mksysb utility, which is included in most versions of AIX. It will copy all the files in the root volume group ...