Doing a Mksysb on DVD Please help !
 

Hi guys I am trying to do a mksysb using a DVD in my /dev/cd0

I ran smitty mkdv and did an F4 to select /dev/cd0 and I keep all the defaults and here are the errors that I am getting. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong? Or what is it that I am not doing? Do I have to burn the DVD and if yes how do I do that?---
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Making the CD or DVD image bootable...
Writing the CD or DVD image to device: /dev/cd0...
Running readcd ...

/usr/bin/readcd: Invalid argument. Cannot send SCSI cmd via ioctl
burn_cd: Command error.

0512-322 mkcd: An error has occurred
writing the CD or DVD image to the CD or DVD device.

If you would like to attempt to write to another CD or DVD, replace
the current CD or DVD with a new writable CD or DVD. Press the <enter> key when
ready...
If you would like to stop the command and cleanup, Press 'q' to quit...

I generally do this from the command line.

I suggest you read the man page for particulars.

Basically, for a DVD sized image use the -L flag.

Assuming that you are using DVD-RAM, you might want to consider using the -u flag as well (makes a udf formatted dvd, rather than an iso9660 format).

If you have lots of spare disk storage you consider just making the images - then use the -S flag, rather than the -d /dev/cd0 flag.

Hope this helps!
Michael

Thank you so much Michael for answering my post. I was wondering also if anyone else knows what might be the exact problem?

Whether it is the DVD type that needs to be Change, etc.

Please help some more.

Michael,

What is the exact command you usually run from the command line?? to do a mksysb using a DVD???

mksysb
 

U can use smitty mksysb. There u select the the device, using F4 key and proceed.

In the command line /usr/bin/mksysb ....

see man mksysb

U should be an administrative user

To make an mksysb:

I have an area I do not put in my mkcd so I have a file:
/etc/exclude.rootvg with the following content:
^./data

As the default action of mkcd is to first make a file with all the info in it, then unpack it to a seperate directory to make an ISO ready image, I tend to make my mkcd backups in udf format.
(read man mkcd for details).

I generally use two commands. One to create the mksysb image, and one to burn the DVD-RAM

mksysb -i -e /data/mksysb.20060515

from man mkcd....

-U Creates a UDF (Universal Disk Format) file system on DVD-RAM media. It does
not require the amount of free space needed to create Rock Ridge format backups.
It does not need the /mkcd/cd_fs and /mkcd/cd_images file systems. Therefore,
the only temporary disk space it needs is to create the backup image that will
be copied to the media. This means that the -I and -C flags do not apply to the
-U flag. Because the backup is copied to the media, images cannot be created and
burned later or on another system. So, the -R flag and -S flag do not apply when
using the -U flag. You need to specify a device to write to with the -d flag.
The -U flag does not use the /usr/sbin/mkrr_fs or /usr/sbin/burn_cd file
systems.

mkcd -L -U -m /data/mksysb.20060515

(p.s. I have just started the mksysb command, so I'll post the output of the mkcd command when I get that finished, or tomorrow, depending on my schedule). It may be the the -L flag is not needed when using -U.

michael@x054:[/data/x054/family]mkcd -d /dev/cd0 -L -U -m `pwd`/mksysb.20060515
Verifying command parameters...
0512-331 mkcd option U and L are mutually exclusive.
=========================================================
This is a new dvd-ram. I havent formated it yet...

michael@x054:[/data/x054/family]mkcd -d /dev/cd0 -U -m `pwd`/mksysb.20060515
Initializing mkcd log: /var/adm/ras/mkcd.log...
Verifying command parameters...
0512-399 mkcd: Unable to create UDF media.
Cleaning up...
umount: 0506-347 Cannot find anything to unmount.
=========================================================
Excerpt from :man udfcreate:
-d device Specifies the device on which to create the UDF volume.

-f Indicates which version of UDF you want to be on the media. Format type of 1
represents UDF 1.5 version, 2 represents UDF 2.0 version and 3 represents UDF
2.01 version.

Examples

1. To create a new UDF file system on device /dev/cd1, enter the following:
udfcreate -d /dev/cd1
========================================================
I used today:michael@x054:[/data/x054/family]time udfcreate -d /dev/cd0 -f 2

real 0m13.34s
user 0m0.00s
sys 0m0.02s

** burning the DVD will take a while, so I'll explain what it does and post the logfile exc later.

Basically, the first steps is to make the DVD bootable, so the necessary drivers etc are collected, and that gets written to the DVD. After that the 'pre-made' or 'dynamic-made' mksysb images is 'restored' to the DVD.

If you must have .iso like images, I'll work that example out later this week. There is a different 'trick' to keep from having rootvg + three copies online at the same time (on a single disk system like mine means I could never use more than 25% of the disk!)

Well I was able to handle the problem. The first error was due to the fileset version and I have upgrade the .rpm filesets to the latest. I downloaded it from this link below

http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/aix/pr.../download.html
I Click on RPM so I could download the cdrecord 5.2 version

cdrecord 1.9 (5.2) License RPM Source A command line CD/DVD recording program.

I downloaded this fileset cdrecord-1.9-7.aix5.2.ppc.rpm which is the latest and installed it.


The main problem was due to the fact that I was using the wrong DVD to do the backup
I was using DVD-R instead of DVD-RAM that is all I needed to do and to take care of the issue.
Then I did a smitty mkdvd
and then select iso...........


Thanks.

Glad you got is sorted.

If you want to burn DVD-R then use the -S option. Then the mkcd, mkdvd commands leave the file on the system. ftp or nfs to another system and burn away.