jdh@bu-pub.bu.edu (Jason Heirtzler) (05/04/91)
Can someone who understands the boot procedure in AIX 3.1 explain how you recover from a damaged system disk, or alternatively how to restore the whole system from a backup tape? The procedure of actually restoring the files from tape is pretty straight forward, but there's some special magic involved in making the system partitions. It looks like bosboot or mkboot can make a bootable disk or tape, but what to do beyond that is pretty confusing. If you boot from a floppy diskette, does this create a ram disk, or does this copy something to the paging area and boot from there, like BSDish unixes do? Also, what's the significance of the logical volume named /blv? Are there any special requirements, like using contigious physical partitions there or on the root lv? At the moment, the only choice that I have is to reinstall the entire system from the distribution tapes and then restore the user partitions and then work back from there. With more than a Gigabyte or two, it's a pretty scary prospect. Thanks for any light you can shed, jdh@pub.bu.edu
john@crcaus.cactus.org (John R. Miller) (05/05/91)
In article <80856@bu.edu.bu.edu> jdh@bu-pub.bu.edu (Jason Heirtzler) writes: > >... Also, what's the significance of the logical volume >named /blv? Are there any special requirements, like using contigious >physical partitions there or on the root lv? As I recall, the physical partitions for the blv (boot logical volume) must be contiguous. -- John R. Miller 13102 Briar Hollow Dr. Austin, Texas 78729 hm: 512/331-0155 john@crcaus.cactus.org or ..cs.utexas.edu!bigtex!crcaus!john wk: 512/823-3867 john@glasnost.austin.ibm.com
jsalter@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com (05/06/91)
In article <80856@bu.edu.bu.edu> jdh@bu-pub.bu.edu (Jason Heirtzler) writes: >Can someone who understands the boot procedure in AIX 3.1 explain >how you recover from a damaged system disk, or alternatively how >to restore the whole system from a backup tape? The procedure of >actually restoring the files from tape is pretty straight forward, >but there's some special magic involved in making the system >partitions. It looks like bosboot or mkboot can make a bootable >disk or tape, but what to do beyond that is pretty confusing. >If you boot from a floppy diskette, does this create a ram disk, or >does this copy something to the paging area and boot from there, like >BSDish unixes do? Also, what's the significance of the logical volume >named /blv? Are there any special requirements, like using contigious >physical partitions there or on the root lv? Check out the boot description in the /usr/lpp/bos/bsdadm document. I believe it is still up-to-date. Did the /usr/lpp/bos/README not mention this? I thought it did... >jdh@pub.bu.edu jim/jsalter IBM PSP, Palo Alto T465/(415)855-4427 VNET: JSALTER at AUSVMQ Internet: jsalter@slo.awdpa.ibm.com UUCP: ..!uunet!ibmsupt!jsalter "IBM part #23521, aka Lt. Commander Data" The stuff above is on my own.
freese@dalvm41b.vnet.ibm.com ("Bradley T. Freese") (05/25/91)
jdh@bu-pub.bu.edu (Jason Heirtzler) writes: > Can someone who understands the boot procedure in AIX 3.1 explain > how you recover from a damaged system disk, or alternatively how > to restore the whole system from a backup tape? The procedure of > actually restoring the files from tape is pretty straight forward, > but there's some special magic involved in making the system > partitions. It looks like bosboot or mkboot can make a bootable > disk or tape, but what to do beyond that is pretty confusing. Boot from a set of maintenance diskettes and select the tape as your installation source. Put the backup tape in the drive and continue with the installation. This will recreate/restore / and /usr. You will have to use 'smit' to re-define your devices (printers and terminals, etc.). > If you boot from a floppy diskette, does this create a ram disk, or > does this copy something to the paging area and boot from there, like > BSDish unixes do? Also, what's the significance of the logical volume > named /blv? Are there any special requirements, like using contigious > physical partitions there or on the root lv? The maintenance diskettes create a ram disk; they do not use the hard disks. The bootstrap logical volume is /blv. It contains the system images that boot the system. It has to be in the root LV, but does not require contiguous PPs. > At the moment, the only choice that I have is to reinstall the entire > system from the distribution tapes and then restore the user partitions > and then work back from there. With more than a Gigabyte or two, it's > a pretty scary prospect. Thanks for any light you can shed, If the user partitions (I assume you mean LVs) are/were in the root VG, the reinstall will leave them alone. You may need to edit /etc/filesystems and replace the entries. If the user LVs are in another VG, you may need to re-import the VG using 'importvg'. Hope this helps. Good luck.