I'm using AIX 3 on IBM PowerStation 520's in a couple of flight simulators where I work. I recently upgraded our disk systems from three 355Mb disks to single 2GB flashdisks. The disk backup utility provided by the manufacturer will only copy 355Mb disks.

I need a basic disk copy routine that will duplicate any size drives. Is there something available for AIX 3? There's no chance my employer will upgrade the OS as it would cost almost $1,000,000 per system due to the need to rewrite all the specialized utilities to work with the new OS. Can it be done using only basic commands? It would be nice if files were concatenated (defragged) during the copy process.

Any tips or help would be appreciated.

tekmeister

If you have a tape drive handy, then mksysb would be the easiest thing.

Another option, if you can convice someone to spend the money, is to get an older machine (F50, H70, H80, M80, etc.) and set up an NIM Master server. It could back up your machines remotely and store an image that can be restored in apprx. 20 minutes, if needed.

I'm sure others can come up with some ideas.

Have you tried dd? That's great for duping disks, especially if you crank up the block size (to seversl MBs).

Thanks LooseCannon - I have tried mksysb but when I try to restore from the tape, the volume groups are not automatically set up again. The restore utility give me the opportunity the manually set up the VG's, but I don't have a clue how to do it. Nothing is discussed in the massive AIX manuals I have either. Any suggestions of what the syntax would be to recreate the VG's during the restore? Please remember I'm using AIX 3 (unfortunately).

Thanks for the help,

Ron

Thanks for the tip Eddie - I think I tried this some time ago, but I don;t recall the outcome. I'll try again and let you know!

Thanks,
Ron

for the script :
type
lsvg -L vgxx >/tmp/lvg_L.log
lsvg -p vgxx >/tmp/lsvg_p.log
lspv, lslv, ...so on
inspire you from your log file to generate a script who make your VG, LV and FS.
Add at the end of this script, the restor command from your mksysb. The command for restor your mksysb can be obtained in the help of the smit(ty) or in the manual.
This is the manner we use for our restor' test plan in our enterprise.
You can use dd on nfs to copy your entire disk to a system which can save and restor your disk.........., like a linux box.
For less than 500$ your can do it.
Compare 500$ and 1,000,000.00 $.
Linux is your freind, because it's the little brother of all unix.