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Ok, before any of you laugh or snide comments - I am posting for a friend in
need

It has been a while since any AIX work, left alone an OLD version of AIX

Situation and Need

AIX 3.2.5 , failing hard drive (hdisk0) - all the worse situations including
unable to locate the key.....


RS 6000 7015


Question, they want to be able to backup system , over a NFS link to a
Windows or MAC or even a Novell server , but have not a clue on how to do
so, or even IF 3.2.5 will support it

They are unable due to a legacy software application to upgrae their AIX
version (let alone hardware limitations...)



Total system can not be over 8 GB total, but need assistance


Any help would be greatly appreciated

BTW, I will pass on any Flames - lol

JS schrieb:
> Ok, before any of you laugh or snide comments - I am posting for a friend in
> need

usual lame excuse ... :-)

>
> It has been a while since any AIX work, left alone an OLD version of AIX
>
> Situation and Need
>
> AIX 3.2.5 , failing hard drive (hdisk0) - all the worse situations including
> unable to locate the key.....
>
> RS 6000 7015
>
> Question, they want to be able to backup system , over a NFS link to a
> Windows or MAC or even a Novell server , but have not a clue on how to do
> so, or even IF 3.2.5 will support it
>
> They are unable due to a legacy software application to upgrae their AIX
> version (let alone hardware limitations...)
>
> Total system can not be over 8 GB total, but need assistance
>

I'm not sure what you want to achieve.
If hdisk0 is still functional (but you wrote "failing" ?)
you can try to save your data by mounting a Mac
(which is a Unix system at least) file system and transfer the data.
But what then ? If you still need the legacy app on the 7015 you
will have to replace the hdisk0 and restore the OS, and for that
you need the key to open the box and install the OS.

On Jan 18, 2:13 pm, "JS" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ok, before any of you laugh or snide comments - I am posting for a friend in
> need
>
> It has been a while since any AIX work, left alone an OLD version of AIX
>
> Situation and Need
>
> AIX 3.2.5 , failing hard drive (hdisk0) - all the worse situations including
> unable to locate the key.....
>
> RS 6000 7015
>
> Question, they want to be able to backup system , over a NFS link to a
> Windows or MAC or even a Novell server , but have not a clue on how to do
> so, or even IF 3.2.5 will support it
>
> They are unable due to a legacy software application to upgrae their AIX
> version (let alone hardware limitations...)
>
> Total system can not be over 8 GB total, but need assistance
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated
>
> BTW, I will pass on any Flames - lol

We have an old 370 still consuming wattage (and finally convinced
folks to stop using it as a space heater).
It's running 4.3 though.

Seems the easiest and quickest way is to do a mksysb and manual backup
of the other volume groups (recall that 3.2.5 didn't have savevg) with
a tape drive.
Assume at least they have that?

Also assume there are no other AIX boxes around to use in this
scenario?

I "think" the bootlist command existed in 3.2.5 and how we got around
the key issue on that series.
Our servers are in remote locations and didn't want to rely on the
"Turn Your Key Sir!" scenario.
You set it up to boot from rmt0 first, then cd0, hdisk0, etc.

If they can at least get a mksysb to tape then they could replace the
drive(s) and boot off of tape for the restore.

As the drive is failing I think it'll waste more time trying to setup
any additional tools to get the boot image onto a cd or backing up
over the network.
They can certainly export an NFS of the root and try to mount it onto
a client (i.e. pc / mac ) for the backup but then still stuck trying
to load up a new disk without install media.

Are they in the Los Angeles area by chance?

JS schrieb:

> AIX 3.2.5 , failing hard drive (hdisk0) - all the worse situations including
> unable to locate the key.....
>
>
> RS 6000 7015


One really nice thing with AIX 3.2 was mksysb was NOT machine dependant.
Before AIX 4 all drivers were installed and so there was only one
bootimage for all machines.
So it is quite easy to recover to a different machine. Everthing that
was able to boot AIX 3.2.5 is out of support for a many years now!

--
Uli