Restoring the IBM Installation Manager history with IBM Business Process Manager (BPM) and WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus (WESB)

Note: This document contains a procedure that might be better handled by using the "imcl -reinstallIM" command-line function of Installation Manager, which you should try before using these steps. Use of the following steps should be considered a last resort.

IBM Installation Manager keeps a history of the applications that it has installed on a machine. If IBM Installation Manager must be completely re-installed, the ability to import or restore the previous history is required; otherwise, all of the applications must be re-installed. To restore the installation history, complete the following steps:

1. Rename the /etc/.ibm/registry/InstallationManager.dat file to /etc/.ibm/registry/InstallationManager.datOLD
   
   
2. Make a backup copy of the /var/ibm/InstallationManager directory just in case, but leave the original /var/ibm/InstallationManager directory in place. The /var/ibm/InstallationManager directory is the IBM Installation Manager application data location that contains all the important IBM Installation Manager product install history information. 
   
   
3. Rename the old IBM Installation Manager install location (by default) /opt/IBM/InstallationManager to  /opt/IBM/InstallationManagerOLD 
   
   
4. Install the latest version of IBM Installation Manager as a fresh IBM Installation Manager install. There is no need to use the  -reinstallIM option. 
   
   
   
   When the new IBM Installation Manager is installed, launch it and check to make sure everything is in order, and the history is there. A good command-line check is:
   /opt/IBM/InstallationManager/eclipse/tools/imcl listInstalledPackages
   
   
   
   You should see output similar to this text:
   com.ibm.bpm.STD.V80_8.0.0.20120504_0135    
   com.ibm.websphere.ND.v80_8.0.3.20120320_0536
   8.0.0.0-WS-BPM-IFJR43689_8.0.0.20120808_2354
   8.0.0.0-WS-BPM-IFJR44064_8.0.0.20121110_1718
   8.0.0.0-WS-BPM-IFJR44341_8.0.0.20121018_1544
   8.0.0.0-WS-BPM-IFJR44697_8.0.0.20121114_1010
   com.ibm.cic.agent_1.6.0.20120831_1216      
   [root@linux4627 tools]# ./imcl version      
   Installation Manager (installed)            
   Version: 1.6.0                              
   Internal Version: 1.6.0.20120831_1216       

If everything is working as desired, you can safely delete the renamed files, renamed directories, and backup files that you used in the previous steps.