Hello,
I have an mksysb image in my disk, created like:
# mksysb -i /mnt/backup/lpar2.image
I want to know if this image could be copied to a tape and make it a boot image.
Thanks
Enzote
Yes, it can. But I'd recommend that if you have multiple AIX servers, you can set one of them up as a NIM server and do restores of that image from NIM via your network. I used to do mksysb restores from tape, but it can be a real pain to do restores/builds from tape.
Tapes go bad
Tape drives get dirty and fail
Shortage of tape drives
Use NIM!
BTW, to copy your image to tape, do:
dd if=/mnt/backup/lpar2.image of=/dev/rmt0 bs=4194304
BTW, I've never copied from disk to tape and performed a restore. You should test a restore before relying on it for a DR.
To be honest i doubt that it will work. If the "mksysb" does not write to a tape device or a NIM server it does not include the boot code to the image as far as i know. Therefore the tape will not be bootable if you transfer it that way - the boot code would still be missing. One would have to provide this boot code via a floppy disk or CD-ROM to boot off the tape.
I'd like to second, though, what you said above: using NIM is the right way to do it.
I hope this helps.
bakunin