I have several H80 machines, all with AIX 4.3.3. On these machines I have mksysb running for rootvg backups and savevg for non-rootvg backups.
I'm trying to get a list of files on the tapes, but I can't seem to do it with tar for the mksysb images. I keep getting the directory checksum errors? Smit lists the files just fine though. I have been able to boot and install BOS from these tapes. How do I get a listing of files stored on these tapes and extract specific files to a differnt location?
I have tried using the restore and listvgbackup commands to list the files froms the savevg backups. But everything I try results in a i/o error or a media error. Even smit fails! How can I read these tapes and extract a sample of files so I know the backups are actually doing what they are intended to do?
Can someone please guide me as I am running out of ideas?
restore -Tqv should print the contents of the file to your term session, but sounds as if you've already gone down that road... is it possible that you've generated the backup on one machine and are trying to read it on another? If so, verify that you have the blocksize set correctly. If the tape was created on a machine with blocksize set to 512 bytes (if my memory isn't failing me this setting is mandatory for mksysb creation / restore to work correctly), then the blocksize on the machine reading the tape must also be 512. The command: "lsattr -El rmt0" should tell you the tape drive setting (assuming tape drive is rmt0, change device name if appropriate), and chdev -a blksize=512 -l rmt0 should set it correctly. Apologies if the commands are not exactly correct as working from memory with no AIX host immediately available.
restore -Tqv should print the contents of the tape to your term session, but sounds as if you've already gone down that road... is it possible that you've generated the backup on one machine and are trying to read it on another? If so, verify that you have the blocksize set correctly. If the tape was created on a machine with blocksize set to 512 bytes (if my memory isn't failing me this setting is mandatory for mksysb creation / restore to work correctly and possibly also savevg), then my understanding has always been that the blocksize on the machine reading the tape must also be 512. The command: "lsattr -El rmt0" should tell you the tape drive setting (assuming tape drive is rmt0, change device name if appropriate), and chdev -a blksize=512 -l rmt0 should set it correctly. Apologies if the commands are not exactly correct as working from memory with no AIX host immediately available.