Backing up the Virtual I/O Server to one or more DVDs

You can back up the Virtual I/O Server base code, applied fix packs, custom device drivers to support disk subsystems, and some user-defined metadata to DVD.

If the system is managed by the Integrated Virtualization Manager, then you need to back up your partition profile data for the management partition and its clients before you back up the Virtual I/O Server. For instructions, see Backing up and restoring partition data. (Alternatively, you can use the bkprofdata command.)

To back up the Virtual I/O Server to one or more DVDs, follow these steps. Only DVD-RAM media can be used to back up the Virtual I/O Server.

Note: Vendor disk drives might support burning to additional disk types, such as CD-RW and DVD-R. Refer to the documentation for your drive to determine which disk types are supported.
  1. Assign an optical drive to the Virtual I/O Server logical partition.
  2. Get the device name by typing the following command: 
    lsdev -type optical
    If the device is in the Defined state, type: 
    cfgdev -dev dev
  3. Run the backupios command with the -cd option. Specify the path to the device. For example: 
    backupios -cd /dev/cd0
    Note: If the Virtual I/O Server does not fit on one DVD, then the backupios command provides instructions for disk replacement and removal until all the volumes have been created.
    This command creates one or more bootable DVDs that you can use to restore the Virtual I/O Server.
  4. If you plan to restore the Virtual I/O Server to a different system from which it was backed up, then you need to back up the user-defined virtual devices. For instructions, see Backing up user-defined virtual devices.