AIX 6.1 mksysb image to AIX 7.1 and used that image to install a new LPAR via NIM.

In the following example I migrated and AIX 6.1 mksysb image to AIX 7.1 and then used that image to install a new LPAR via NIM.
The source LPAR was running AIX 6.1 TL6 SP3. I took a mksysb of this system to my NIM master.


# oslevel -s
6100-06-03-1048

The NIM mksysb resource was named cg-aix61


root@nim1 / # lsnim -t mksysb
vio1-mksysb     resources       mksysb
cg-aix61        resources       mksysb


root@nim1 / # lsnim -l cg-aix61
cg-aix61:
   class         = resources
   type          = mksysb
   arch          = power
   Rstate        = ready for use
   prev_state    = unavailable for use
   location      = /export/mksysb/cg-aix61
   version       = 6
   release       = 1
   mod           = 6
   oslevel_r     = 6100-06
   alloc_count   = 0
   server        = master
   creation_date = Thu Jan 6 10:00:22 2011
   source_image  = cg


root@nim1 / #

To migrate the mksysb image from AIX 6.1 to AIX 7.1, I ran the following nimadm command:


root@nim1 / # nimadm -T cg-aix61 -O /export/mksysb/cg-aix71 -s spotaix7tl0sp2 -l aix7tl0sp2 -j nimadmvg -Y -N cg-aix71

The flags indicate the following:
-T specifies the existing AIX 6.1 NIM mksysb resource.
-O specifies the output location for the migrated mksysb resource.
-s indicates the AIX 7.1 NIM SPOT resource for the migration.
-l indicates the AIX 7.1 NIM lpp_source resource for the migration.
-j identifies the volume group that will be used on the NIM master to create file systems.
-Y Agrees to required software license agreements for software to be installed.
-N specifies the name of the new AIX 7.1 NIM mksysb resource to be created after migration.


Before running this command I made sure that I had installed the bos.alt_disk_install.rtefileset into my AIX 7.1 SPOT. If this fileset was not installed I would have received the following message immediately after issuing the nimadm command:


0042-001 nim: processing error encountered on "master":

   /usr/bin/lslpp: Fileset bos.alt_disk_install.rte not installed.

0505-204 nimadm: SPOT spotaix7tl0sp2 does not have bos.alt_disk_install.rteinstalled.
0505-205 nimadm: The level of bos.alt_disk_install.rte installed in SPOT

spotaix7tl0sp2 (0.0.0.0) does not match the NIM master's level (7.1.0.2).


Cleaning up alt_disk_migration on the NIM master.

I also had an AIX 7.1 lpp_source and SPOT ready and waiting on my NIM master.


root@nim1 / # lsnim -t lpp_source
aix61tl6sp3     resources       lpp_source
openssh         resources       lpp_source
aix7tl0sp2      resources       lpp_source


root@nim1 / # lsnim -t spot
vio1-spot           resources       spot
spotaix61tl6sp3     resources       spot
spotaix7tl0sp2      resources       spot

OK, back to my nimadm operation. Upon initiating the migration I saw the following output on my screen

root@nim1 / # nimadm -T cg-aix61 -O /export/mksysb/cg-aix71 -s spotaix7tl0sp2 -l aix7tl0sp2 -j nimadmvg -Y -N cg-aix71


Initializing the NIM master.
Verifying alt_disk_migration eligibility.
Initializing log: /var/adm/ras/alt_mig/cg-aix61_alt_mig.log
Starting Alternate Disk Migration.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Executing nimadm phase 1.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Processing target mksysb resource cg-aix61.
Restoring /image.data from mksysb image.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Executing nimadm phase 2.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+


Creating nimadm cache file systems on volume group nimadmvg.
Checking for initial required migration space.
Creating cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst
Creating cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/admin
Creating cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/home
Creating cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/opt
Creating cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/tmp
Creating cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/usr
Creating cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/var
Creating cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/var/adm/ras/livedump

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Executing nimadm phase 3.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Syncing mksysb data to cache ...

.....etc......

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Executing nimadm phase 8.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+


Creating client boot image.
bosboot: Boot image is 45709 512 byte blocks.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Executing nimadm phase 9.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Adjusting client file system sizes ...
Adjusting size for /
Adjusting size for /admin
Adjusting size for /home
Adjusting size for /opt
Adjusting size for /tmp
Adjusting size for /usr
Adjusting size for /var
Adjusting size for /var/adm/ras/livedump

Backing up cache data to mksysb file /export/mksysb/cg-aix71 ...

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Executing nimadm phase 10.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Unmounting client mounts on the NIM master.
forced unmount of /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/var/adm/ras/livedump
forced unmount of /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/var
forced unmount of /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/usr
forced unmount of /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/tmp
forced unmount of /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/opt
forced unmount of /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/home
forced unmount of /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/admin
forced unmount of /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst


Removing nimadm cache file systems.
Removing cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst
Removing cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/admin
Removing cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/home
Removing cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/opt
Removing cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/tmp
Removing cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/usr
Removing cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/var
Removing cache file system /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/var/adm/ras/livedump

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Executing nimadm phase 11.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Defining NIM mksysb resource ...
New NIMmksysb resource name is cg-aix71

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Executing nimadm phase 12.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Cleaning up alt_disk_migration on the NIM master.

root@nim1 / #
For a description of all the phases in a nimadm operation, I suggest you refer to my previous nimadm article or the AIX infocenter (links below).

Once the migration had completed, I found a new mksysb file in /export/mksysb (as expected). The file was named cg-aix71. And a new NIM mksysb resource was now available.


root@nim1 / # ls -ltr /export/mksysb/
total 30793928
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     system          256 Dec 21 10:40 lost+found
-rw-r--r--    1 root     system   4893952000 Dec 21 14:42 vio1-mksysb
-rw-r--r--    1 root     system   2323097600 Jan 06 10:00 cg-aix61
-rw-r--r--    1 root     system   1967411200 Jan 06 11:00 cg-aix71


root@nim1 / # lsnim -t mksysb
vio1-mksysb     resources       mksysb
cg-aix61        resources       mksysb
cg1-mksysb      resources       mksysb
cg-aix71        resources       mksysb


root@nim1 / # lsnim -l cg-aix71
cg-aix71:
   class         = resources
   type          = mksysb
   comments      = Created by nimadm on Thu Jan 6 11:00:51 EETDT 2011
   Rstate        = ready for use
   prev_state    = unavailable for use
   location      = /export/mksysb/cg-aix71
   version       = 7
   release       = 1
   mod           = 0
   oslevel_r     = 7100-00
   alloc_count   = 0
   server        = master
   creation_date = Thu Jan 6 11:00:54 2011

During the migration I noticed the following file systems were mounted on the NIM master.

root@nim1 / # df
Filesystem    512-blocks      Free %Used    Iused %Iused Mounted on
/dev/hd4         1572864   1149640   27%    10471     8% /
/dev/hd2         5242880   1597696   70%    42812    19% /usr
/dev/hd9var      1048576    250456   77%     8260    23% /var
/dev/hd3         8912896   8287752    8%      111     1% /tmp
/dev/hd1          524288    523520    1%        5     1% /home
/dev/hd11admin     524288    523488    1%        5     1% /admin
/proc                  -         -    -         -     -  /proc
/dev/hd10opt     1048576    664176   37%     7262     9% /opt
/dev/livedump     524288    523552    1%        4     1% /var/adm/ras/livedump
/dev/tftpbootlv     524288    419656   20%       10     1% /tftpboot
/dev/exportlv     524288    523408    1%       13     1% /export
/dev/lppsrclv   25690112   4383632   83%     3114     1% /export/lppsource
/dev/spotlv      8912896   4848464   46%    43450     8% /export/spot
/dev/mksysblv   38273024  11315200   71%        9     1% /export/mksysb
/dev/lv00         425984    412432    4%       25     1% /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst
/dev/lv01          65536     63376    4%       18     1% /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/admin
/dev/lv02          65536     63384    4%       17     1% /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/home
/dev/lv03         557056    414720   26%      201     1% /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/opt
/dev/lv04         294912    285184    4%       21     1% /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/tmp
/dev/lv05        4653056   4506904    4%       17     1% /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/usr
/dev/lv06         720896    698160    4%       20     1% /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/var
/dev/lv07          65536     63384    4%       17     1% /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/var/adm/ras/livedump


And in my nimadmvg volume group, there were several new logical volumes.

root@nim1 / # lsvg -l nimadmvg
nimadmvg:
LV NAME             TYPE       LPs     PPs     PVs  LV STATE      MOUNT POINT
loglv02             jfslog     1       1       1    open/syncd    N/A
lv00                jfs        13      13      1    open/syncd    /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst
lv01                jfs        2       2       1    open/syncd    /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/admin
lv02                jfs        2       2       1    open/syncd    /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/home
lv03                jfs        17      17      1    open/syncd    /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/opt
lv04                jfs        9       9       1    open/syncd    /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/tmp
lv05                jfs        142     142     1    open/syncd    /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/usr
lv06                jfs        22      22      1    open/syncd    /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/var
lv07                jfs        2       2       1    open/syncd    /cg-aix61_mm_alt/alt_inst/var/adm/ras/livedump


root@nim1 / #

These file systems were used to extract the mksysb locally on the NIM master and then migrate the image to AIX 7.1. I noticed the restbyname process consuming some CPU during the restore process.


Topas Monitor for host:nim1                     EVENTS/QUEUES    FILE/TTY
Thu Jan  6 10:15:38 2011   Interval:2           Cswitch    1155  Readch  2655.6K
                                                Syscall    3143  Writech 2664.7K
CPU     User% Kern% Wait% Idle%   Physc  Entc%  Reads       454  Rawin         0
Total     6.1  22.0   8.2  63.7    0.09  47.04  Writes     1168  Ttyout      578
                                                Forks        12  Igets        85
Network    BPS  I-Pkts  O-Pkts    B-In   B-Out  Execs         0  Namei       521
Total    7.74K    5.50    1.50   5.74K   2.00K  Runqueue      0  Dirblk       97
                                                Waitqueue   1.0
Disk    Busy%      BPS     TPS  B-Read  B-Writ                   MEMORY
Total     0.0    5.21M   383.0   2.02M   3.19M  PAGING           Real,MB    2048
                                                Faults      776  % Comp     67
FileSystem          BPS    TPS  B-Read  B-Writ  Steals     1118  % Noncomp  32
Total             2.03M  85.50   2.03M       0  PgspIn        0  % Client   19
                                                PgspOut       0
Name           PID  CPU%  PgSp Owner            PageIn      517  PAGING SPACE
restbyna   15532232 16.4 1.21M root             PageOut     816  Size,MB     512
vmmd         458766  5.5 1.19M root             Sios        969  % Used      3
lrud         262152  1.5  512K root                              % Free     97
syncd       2097296  1.1  592K root             NFS (calls/sec)
topas      16973864  0.5 1.98M root             SerV2         0  WPAR Activ    0
xmgc         851994  0.5  448K root             CliV2         0  WPAR Total    0
nimesis    12320772  0.3 2.41M root             SerV3         0  Press: "h"-help
getty       7798832  0.1  580K root             CliV3         0         "q"-quit
xmtopas     8847610  0.1  816K root
nfsd        5111964  0.1 4.75M root
xmtopasa    6947052  0.1  916K root
gil         1441836  0.0  960K root
java        4784136  0.0 57.5M pconsole
java        8716308  0.0 70.7M root
rpc.lock    6029528  0.0 1.19M root
clcomd      6160578  0.0 1.69M root
pilegc       786456  0.0  640K root
aixmibd     3997882  0.0 1.24M root
netm        1376298  0.0  448K root
topasrec    8454202  0.0 1.01M root


root@nim1 / # ps -ef | grep rest
    root 15270132  3342336   1 10:15:55  pts/1  0:00 grep rest
    root 15532232 10747910  37 10:14:02  pts/0  0:02 restbyname -x -q -f /export/mksysb/cg-aix61


root@nim1 / #

I didn’t encounter any issues with my nimadm operation but if I had I could have reviewed the nimadm log file located in /var/adm/ras:

root@nim1 /var/adm/ras/alt_mig # ls -ltr
total 856
-rw-r--r--    1 root     system       435009 Jan 06 11:00 cg-aix61_alt_mig.log


If you ever encounter problems with nimadm, I highly recommend that you re-run the operation with the –V and –D flags. This will enable verbose output, as well as debugging information which can assist you greatly in determining the root cause of your issue.


I was able to use the new, migrated, AIX 7.1 mksysb image to install a new LPAR.
AIX Version 7
Copyright IBM Corporation, 1982, 2010.
login: root
root's Password:
*******************************************************************************

*                                                                             *


*                                                                             *


*  Welcome to AIX Version 7.1!                                                *


*                                                                             *


*                                                                             *


*  Please see the README file in /usr/lpp/bos for information pertinent to    *


*  this release of the AIX Operating System.                                  *


*                                                                             *


*                                                                             *

*******************************************************************************

Last login: Thu Jan  6 13:21:04 EETDT 2011 on /dev/vty0

# oslevel -s
7100-00-02-1041


For More info Visit the IBM-Site Nim Admin


http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/pseries/v5r3/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.aix.cmds/doc/aixcmds4/nimadm.htm


http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/pseries/v5r3/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.aix.install/doc/insgdrf/mksysbmigration.htm


NIM from A to Z in AIX 5L Redbook.


http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/sg247296.html?Open