System Management Guide: Operating System and Devices

Backing Up the System Image and User-Defined Volume Groups

Backing Up Your System

The following procedures describe how to make an installable image of your system. For more information about backing up the system, see Backing Up the System Image and User-Defined Volume Groups in the AIX 5L Version 5.1 System Management Concepts: Operating System and Devices.

Prerequisites

Before backing up the rootvg volume group:

All hardware must already be installed, including external devices, such as tape and CD-ROM drives.
This backup procedure requires the sysbr fileset, which is in the BOS System Management Tools and Applications software package. Type the following command to determine whether the sysbr fileset is installed on your system:
```
lslpp -l bos.sysmgt.sysbr
```
If your system has the sysbr fileset installed, continue the backup procedures.
If the lslpp command does not list the sysbr fileset, install it before continuing with the backup procedure. See Installing Optional Software and Service Updates in the AIX 5L Version 5.1 Installation Guide for instructions.
```
installp -agqXd device bos.sysmgt.sysbr
```
where device is the location of the software; for example,/dev/rmt0 for a tape drive.

Before backing up a user-defined volume group:

Before being saved, a volume group must be varied on and the file systems must be mounted.

Attention: Executing the savevg command results in the loss of all material previously stored on the selected output medium.
Make sure the backup device has been cleaned recently to prevent errors.

Backing Up Your System Tasks
Task	SMIT Fast Path	Command or File
Backing up the rootvg volume group	Log in as root. Mount file systems for backup.¹ smit mountfs Unmount any local directories that are mounted over another local directory. smit umountfs Make at least 8.8MB of free disk space available in the /tmp directory.² Back up. smit mksysb Write-protect the backup media. Record any backed-up root and user passwords.	Log in as root. Mount file systems for backup.¹ See mount command. Unmount any local directories that are mounted over another local directory. See umount command. Make at least 8.8MB of free disk space available in the /tmp directory.² Back up. See mksysb command. Write-protect the backup media. Record any backed-up root and user passwords.
Verify a Backup Tape³	smit lsmksysb
Backing up a user-defined volume group⁴	smit savevg	Modify the file system size before backing up, if necessary.⁵ mkvgdata VGName then edit /tmp/vgdata/VGName/VGName.data Save the volume group. See the savevg command.

Notes:

The mksysb command does not back up file systems mounted across an NFS network.
The mksysb command requires this working space for the duration of the backup. Use the df command, which reports in units of 512-byte blocks, to determine the free space in the /tmp directory. Use the chfs command to change the size of the file system, if necessary.
This procedure lists the contents of a mksysb backup tape. The contents list verifies most of the information on the tape but does not verify that the tape can be booted for installations. The only way to verify that the boot image on a mksysb tape functions correctly is by booting from the tape.
If you want to exclude files in a user-defined volume group from the backup image, create a file named /etc/exclude.volume_group_name, where volume_group_name is the name of the volume group that you want to back up. Then edit /etc/exclude.volume_group_name and enter the patterns of file names that you do not want included in your backup image. The patterns in this file are input to the pattern matching conventions of the grep command to determine which files are excluded from the backup.
If you choose to modify the VGName.data file to alter the size of a file system, you must not specify the -i flag or the -m flag with the savevg command, because the VGName.data file is overwritten.

For more information about installing (or restoring) a backup image, see "Installing BOS from a System Backup" in the AIX 5L Version 5.1 Installation Guide.