Trying to backup the VIOS system to DVD using the backupios command. The command completes and reports success yet there is nothing written to the DVD.
Hardware: Blade H series JS23/43
$ ioslevel
2.1.2.13-FP-22.1 SP-02
# lsdev -Cc cdrom
cd0 Available 2.1.2.3- USB DVD R/RW or RAM Drive
$ backupios -cd /dev/cd0 -cdformat -nosvg
Backup in progress. This command can take a considerable amount of time
to complete, please be patient...
Initializing mkcd log: /var/adm/ras/mkcd.log...
Verifying command parameters...
Creating image.data file...
Creating temporary file system: /mkcd/mksysb_image...
Creating mksysb image...
Creating list of files to back up.
Backing up 76722 files.......................
76722 of 76722 files (100%)
0512-038 mksysb: Backup Completed Successfully.
Creating temporary file system: /mkcd/cd_fs...
Populating the CD or DVD file system...
Copying backup to the CD or DVD file system...
...............
Building chrp boot image...
Creating temporary file system: /mkcd/cd_images...
Creating Rock Ridge format image: /mkcd/cd_images/cd_image_413868
Running mkisofs ...
.............
mkrr_fs was successful.
Making the CD or DVD image bootable...
Writing the CD or DVD image to device: /dev/cd0...
Running readcd ...
............................................
Capacity: 1 Blocks = 2 kBytes = 0 MBytes = 0 prMB
Sectorsize: 2048 Bytes
CDB: 0A 00 00 00 01 00
cmd finished after 445.566s timeout 40s
burn_cd was successful.
Removing temporary file system: /mkcd/cd_images...
Removing temporary file system: /mkcd/cd_fs...
Removing temporary file system: /mkcd/mksysb_image...
$
The current work around is to make an image and then ftp it to another system to burn it to DVD. Yet I would rather find out what I'm missing here to get this working.
---------- Post updated at 11:16 AM ---------- Previous update was at 11:13 AM ----------
During this process it does not seem that the system is doing anything with the DVD drive.
filosophizer - tried the "smitty mkdvd" command. The results were the same "burn_cd was successful" yet nothing is written to the DVD. It was a bit more verbose yet was not giving an error.
lo-lp-kl - Thanks for the link, I was in there before I posted here. I try and do my homework before asking for help - sometimes I do miss things though.
So far I have tested using DVD -R, DVD +R and DVD -RAM with the same results. So for grins I thought I might test without any media just to see if I could get an error message:
$ backupios -cd /dev/cd0 -cdformat -nosvg
Backup in progress. This command can take a considerable amount of time
to complete, please be patient...
Initializing mkcd log: /var/adm/ras/mkcd.log...
Verifying command parameters...
0512-332 mkcd: Device /dev/cd0 does not appear to be ready. For
information about possible causes, see /usr/lpp/bos.sysmgt/mkcd.README.txt
Continuing...
Creating image.data file...
0512-329 mkcd: User specified CD or DVD file system: /mkcd/cd_fs
needs an additional 4589964982 bytes.
Cleaning up...
$ $ backupios -cd /dev/cd0 -cdformat -nosvg
Backup in progress. This command can take a considerable amount of time
to complete, please be patient...
Initializing mkcd log: /var/adm/ras/mkcd.log...
Verifying command parameters...
0512-332 mkcd: Device /dev/cd0 does not appear to be ready. For
information about possible causes, see /usr/lpp/bos.sysmgt/mkcd.README.txt
Continuing...
Creating image.data file...
0512-329 mkcd: User specified CD or DVD file system: /mkcd/cd_fs
needs an additional 4589964982 bytes.
Cleaning up...
$
So it does seem to realize that the drive contains media.
filosophizer - I do appreciate your help, yet from my comment yesterday:
So far I have tested using DVD -R, DVD +R and DVD -RAM with the same results.
The command I'm using is a simple backupios and would rather stay out of smitty for the time being (since testing that did not resolve my issue). My thinking at this time is this issue is basically how the vios see's the DVD as a USB device.
Think for the time being I will table this issue with trying to burn the DVD as my deadline approaches and I will stick with making an iso and ftp to another work station to burn. Thanks for the help - I will continue to monitor this thread and will post the resolve when I get back to it.
filosophizer - you called this one in an earlier reply
The solution was to use DVD-RAM and udf format.
backupios -cd /dev/cd0 -accept -udf -nosvg
Make note that if your vio server needs a second disk - someone will need to be present to change the disk when needed (we did not need multiple disks, our image fit on one disk).
Interesting side notes on this, the above command did not work a couple of days prior to the resolve. The DVD that was produced on the first attempt was not boot-able and had an incorrect file size. Since this is a project with a few people working on different things it is hard to duplicate.
At one point a reload from scratch was performed - could have contributed to our final success. The man file for this command has -cdformat listed yet that does not seem to work (with actually writing to disk). The command will complete with no errors just that nothing will be written to the DVD media.
Hope this note can help someone else.