Restoring Remote Output Queues (RMTOUTQs) When Migrating to a New System i Products System

Chapter 15, Release-to-Release Support, in the IBM i Systems management Recovering your system guide for 7.1 (SC41-5304-10), has a section titled "Restoring previous release user data to a new system" that provides the steps for restoring user data to a new system that is at a newer release or is at the same release. Step 31 provides the steps needed to restore the user data and related system data, starting with the following:

Chapter 15, Release-to-Release Support, in the IBM i Systems management Recovering your system guide for 6.1 (SC41-5304-09), has a section titled "Restoring previous release user data to a new system" that provides the steps for restoring user data to a new system that is at a newer release or is at the same release. Step 31 provides the steps needed to restore the user data and related system data, starting with the following:

Chapter 14, Release-to-Release Support, in the iSeries Backup and Recovery for V5R4M0 (SC41-5304-08) has a section titled "Restoring previous release user data to a new system: Step-by-step instructions" that provides the steps for restoring user data to a new system that is at a newer release or is at the same release. Step 27 provides the steps needed to restore the user data and related system data, starting with the following:

To properly restore Remote Output Queues to a new System i, first use the following Restore Object (RSTOBJ) command to restore all of the output queue descriptions, including all of the Remote Output Queues:

RSTOBJ OBJ(*ALL) SAVLIB(QUSRSYS) DEV(media-device-name) OBJTYPE(*OUTQ)
       ENDOPT(*REWIND) MBROPT(*ALL) ALWOBJDIF(*ALL)

and then use the following Restore Configuration (RSTCFG) command to restore all of the printer device descriptions:

RSTCFG OBJ(*ALL) DEV(media-device-name) OBJTYPE(*ALL) SRM(*NONE)
       ALWOBJDIF(*ALL) ENDOPT(*LEAVE)

This causes all of the Remote Output Queues to be restored first, so the output queue will have the Remote system (RMTSYS) parameter and all other Remote Output Queue-related parameters set before any dummy device descriptions associated with the Remote Output Queues are restored. By setting the End of media option (ENDOPT) parameter to *REWIND on the RSTOBJ command, the tape is automatically rewound, but not unloaded. Then you may proceed with restoring the printer device descriptions, which will restore any dummy device descriptions that are associated with their corresponding Remote Output Queues, which have already been previously restored.

Otherwise, if the device descriptions (including any dummy device descriptions) are restored first, then the system will automatically create output queues for all of the printer device descriptions; however, those output queues will be created with the RMTSYS parameter set to *NONE and all other Remote Output Queue-related parameters set to the default values. Then when you go to restore the Remote Output Queues, they cannot be restored because those output queues are already on the system; therefore, they will not be replaced with the output queues that had been backed up.

Note: Starting with V5R4M0 (R540) IBM i5/OS, if the system backups were performed using the native SAVLIB, SAVOBJ, SAVRSTLIB, or SAVRSTOBJ commands, or with Save menu Options 21-23, and the Spooled file data (SPLFDTA) parameter was set to *ALL, then the spooled files in the output queues will automatically be restored on the new system. However, this requires both the source system and the target system to have V5R4M0 (R540) i5/OS installed. Spooled file data can also be restored to the new system if the QSRSAVO API was used to save the system, as long as the proper API key is specified.

If you have already restored your system from backups, restored your printer device descriptions, and then restored your output queues, then any Remote Output Queue that had been configured to use a dummy device description will be lost. That is because the device descriptions were restored first, causing the system to generate output queues for those printer device descriptions, but those output queues have the Remote system (RMTSYS) parameter set to *NONE and all other Remote Output Queue-related parameters set to their default values. Then when the output queues are later restored, the output queues already exist (for any that were using a dummy device description), so the Remote Output Queues cannot be restored.

This problem can be resolved by using the following steps to delete the existing device descriptions and output queues, restore the Remote Output Queue descriptions, and restore the device descriptions again: