ITEM: I1675L

mksysb did not backup a mounted /u filesystem.

Question:

When I restored from a mksysb my /u file system was not restored.
Why not?  Before my backup, I had removed the link from /u and /home
and created a directory called /u.  I then changed /etc/filesystems
so that I had a filesystem called /u and its logical volume was 
/dev/hd1 and its volume is /home.  Could this have been the problem?

Response:

You reinstalled from a mksysb and when you cd into /u and /home, neither
have any files in them despite the fact that there were files in them
before you backed up your system. You did a table of contents on the tar
image of the tape and could only find the symbolic link between /u and
/home. The table of contents did not contain in files in /u or /home.
If you had noticed, you should have seen an error during the mksysb
backup complaining that /u is symbolically linked to /home and the 
mksysb would have continued on from there, not backing up the data in
your unique /u filesystem.  By changing the way that the system is set
up, you changed the ability to backup that data with the mksysb.

The solution to this problem is to change your system setup in one of 
the following ways:

 1) Change the mount point of the /dev/hd1 logical volume so that it 
    is mounted on /home.  You will want to unmount the filesystem
    before preceding.  You change the mount point via SMIT or by 
    editing the /etc/filesystems file.  After doing this, you need 
    to remove the /u directory and then link /u back to /home.  Since 
    the data is really contained on /dev/hd6, once you remount /home
    you should have all your data there.  Just make sure you do not
    run the rmfs command or the rmlv command.  Just simply change
    the mount point.  Always backup your data before changing
    the configuration just incase things get confusing and you
    accidentally loose the data.

 2) Reverse the symbolic so that /home is linked to /u and mount 
    the /u file system on /u.  You will need to remove the /home
    directory first to do this.

The best procedure would be the first one.  Note that you should really
not change the configuration of your system so drastically, especially
without testing the setup first.  Always confirm your backups to make
sure that all is being backed up that you think is.



Support Line: mksysb did not backup a mounted /u filesystem. ITEM: I1675L

Dated: April 1994 Category: N/A

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