"Cloning systems"

[Don Williams_8]

I thought this would be easy. I have an Alpha 800 with ba356 raid. Let's call it system X. Need to build system Y. System Y is a to be clone of X except for naming and Ip / decnet changes.
No tape drives or infoservers to use.

Install sys disk from X into Y raid after initting target disk (356 and the disks are all the same models).
Image backup X to disk Y and many directories / files don't get copied !
Never seen this before - any comments ?
Cheers

[Uwe Zessin]

BA356 is a disk drive enclosure. It would be helpful to understand what type of RAID is involved. Host-based volume shadowing or a backplane RAID controller?

[Don Williams_8]

Hi
Back plane - Raid 1 using rz1df's 9.1 gig.

[Andy Bustamante]

>> Many files don't get copied

Do you mean these are marked NOBACKUP or is there another message?

Are you booting from CD or trying to copy a live system disk? You can probably get away with copying a live system disk, although HP doesn't recommend this.

[Mike Naime · Accepted solution]

My "standard" OS clone command is:
BACKUP/IMAGE/IGNORE=INTER SYS$SYSDEVICE: {target LUN}

If you are attempting to copy a drive with files/directories that are marked NOBACKUP, then you need /IGNORE=(INTER,NOBACKUP)

[Robert Gezelter]

Don,

If my recollection is correct, files marked NOBACKUP would appear to be created, but the data would be junk.

One possibility that occurs to me is whether some of the directories are protected, and the account that you are using cannot get into the directories. Does your process have READALL?

I hope that the above is helpful.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[Antoniov.]

My preferred cloning command is
BACKUP/IMAGE/IGN=(INTER,NOBACK) ...
same as Mike.

Antonio Vigliotti

[Uwe Zessin]

Sounds like a Mylex OEM controller...

How did you transfer the disks to the new system? Did you rip them out while power was applied to the system?

[Kris Clippeleyr]

Hi,


many directories / files don't get copied


When "copying" system disks, you better boot from a medium other than the disk you're trying to copy, e.g. from a CD.
You can then make a "clean" copy.
When using BACKUP/IGNORE=INTERLOCK on a "live" disk, you might induce data corruption on the target disk, since then also files open for write are copied (and you never know what's in there). BACKUP/IGNORE=NOBACKUP does in fact ignore the NOBACKUP attribute on files (and will therefor also backup the SYSDUMP.DMP & the PAGEFILE.SYS, if any).
Also, when "cloning" a system, take care of the SCS parameters, DECnet node name & address, IP host name & address, etc.

Regards,
Kris (aka Qkcl)

[Daniel Fernandez Illan]

Hi Don
When I cloned alpha systems, I used next procedure:
-Create a "master disk" using:
SYS$SYSTEM:AXPVMS$PCSI_INSTALL_MIN.COM
-Reboot from "master disk"
-BACKUP/IMAGE source_device target_device
-Reboot from target_device
-Modify SCS parameters (SCSNODE & SCSSYSTEMID)
on params.dat (using SYSGEN) and modparams.dat
-Modify DECnet local name using net$configure (option 2)
-Check new local name using decnet_register
-Modify routing values editing NET$ROUTING_STARTUP.NCL.
-Modify ip values.

Saludos (Sorry for my poor english).
Daniel.

[Ian Miller.]

"many directories / files don't get copied !"
- the specific error messages that are displayed would be very helpful and prevent much fruitless speculation .

[Joseph Huber_1]

No idea what happened with Your files not copied (do analyze/disk - maybe it shows errors ),

but want to add to the cloning sequence of Daniel:
In a cluster-environment, don't copy and afterwards reconfigure, but FIRST add the new node as a satellite (cluster_config), boot the new node from it's own system root, configure networks, and AFTER that copy the system disk, and boot the new system from the copied disk.

[Jan van den Ende]

Hi,

-- just an educated guess, or shooting in the dark:

one thing that _MIGHT_ apply here is the infamous switchover of VMS$COMMON.DIR with SYSCOMMON.

There WAS a period (V6.2, ISTR) when Image Backup got the alias directories mixed up.
Each [SYSx]SYSCOMMON.DIR should be an alias for [0,0]VMS$COMMON.DIR, but "SYS" is alphabetically before "VMS", making the SYS root being backupped, and VMS$COMMON only ENTERed.
_THIS_ became the structure upon restore. Now, if nothing further changed, it could function seemingly normal, but if some other activities like CLUSTER_CONFIG were done, weird things might happen.
It may be that you got hit by that.

On your system X, can you do a DUMP/HEADER of VMS$COMMON.DIR, and of the various [SYSx]SYSCOMMON.DIRs? Of special interest are the File ID's and the File Backlink Pointer.

Report here, and we will tell you if I am completely off-target, or how you can cure it.

Proost.

Have one on me.

Jan

[Don Williams_8]

Gentlemen -
Sorry for the initial ambiguity.
I retried adding the nobackup and all was well.
Many many many thanks to you all and I'd happilly buy you all a beer!

Regards
Don

[Ian Miller.]

instead of virtual beer see
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/helptips.do?#33