Determining the file causing a mksysb to fail

Environment

Problem

mksysb is failing to backup a file and customer can't see where it fails.

Solution

We will be making a minor addition to the mksysb command to obtain a copy of the archive file in order to do the diagnosis. The following sequence will accomplish this.

# cp /usr/bin/mksysb /usr/bin/mksysb.old

Next we want to insert a line into mksysb immediately after a line that looks like

done ; } > "$archive_lst"

# vi /usr/bin/mksysb <enter>
  /done ; <enter>
  o
  cp $archive_lst /tmp/archive.out <escape>
  :wq

Now run the mksysb with a -v option, redirecting the ouput to a file:

# mksysb -iv /dev/rmt0 >/tmp/mksysb.log 2>&1 

When the mksysb fails, look at the mksysb.log and find out what file was the last backed up, then look at the archive.out and find out what the next file to be backed up was. This will be the file causing the problem. This file can be added to /etc/exclude.rootvg and the mksysb run with the '-e' flag.

[ Doc Ref: 76748435305101     Publish Date: Jan. 16, 2002]