Identity Manager

Determining Product Fixpack Levels

The most common question involved in the support process is "what version and patch level are you running?". It may seem like a straightforward question, and can be the key to a quick problem resolution, but it's often not that easy to identify fix packs, patches or minor releases.

Those familiar with the Tivoli Framework-based products will remember the wlsinst command that would list the products and patches installed for all the Tivoli products. An IBM Tivoli Identity Manager environment, however, includes middleware from a variety of brands with each component having its own unique way of determining the version. These pages will help you determine where to find the fixpack or patch level of various middleware components.

Terminology

This section lists some standard terminology relating to product and patch levels.

What is VRMF?

VRMF (or V.R.M.F.) stands for Version, Release, Modification Level and Fix. It is a standard approach to product versioning that different parts of IBM have applied for many years.

So if you have a set of AIX packages with a number 5.3.0.0, they are from AIX Version 5, Release 3, Modification Level 0, Fix 0. If the packages have 5.3.0.10, they are from AIX Version 5, Release 3, Modification Level 0, Fix 10.

Note that the F in the numbering means Fix; it does not neccessarily mean Fix Pack. Also, not all products follow this scheme, particularly products from acquisitions.

What is the difference between Fix Packs, Interim Fixes and Limited Availability Fixes?

Tivoli has three types of fixes it issues:

Limited Avalialability (LA) fixes	These are emergency fixes in response to a specific customer issue in a specific customer environment. These have limited testing, normally only to the level required for the customers' problem environment. They are often controlled by Support, but even if they aren't they should not be installed unless there is a high-confidence match of the problem and environment.
Interim Fixes (IF)	These are the day-to-day fixes created by Level 3 in response to customer issues. They undergo a level of testing against the supported platforms and are issued when the testing and packaging is complete. Interim fixes should be applied if they appear to resolve issues.
Fix Packs (FP)	These are a periodic bundling of Interim Fixes and other resolved APAR's. The plan (see the Tivoli Fix Pack Strategy) is to release FixPacks on a regular basis to allow customers to plan their maintenance cycles. Customers should plan for and implement Fix Packs as they are released.

The Level 3 Support teams control the numbering, and the numbering of releases should be unique irrespective of whether the fix is LA, IF or FP. So you may see IF0005, LA0006, IF0007 and FP0008.

The Fix level in VRMF should indicate the IF/LA/FP level. So LA0006 should have a n.n.n.6 number. This is how it is supposed to work, but it's not always the case.

Note that not all products use this nomenclature.

How do I read the Tivoli File Names

Many of the IBM products now follow a naming convention of V.R.M-<BRAND>-<PRODUCT>-<FPNBR>. For example:

• 6.0.0-TIV-ITDI-FP0003 is FixPack 3 for ITDI 6.0
• 4.5.1-TIV-TIM-IF0068 is Interim Fix 68 for ITIM 4.5.1
• 5.1.0-TIV-WPI-LA0018 is Limited Availability fix 18 for the TAMeb Web Plugins.

Note that each TAM component has a unique product identifier, such as:

• TAM - TAMeb Base
• WPI - Web Plugins
• AWS - WebSEAL
• SMS - Session Management Server

Some Approaches That May Not Be Reliable

There are some approaches to finding version information that may not be very useful.

Finding Version Information in the GUI Help Menus

Most products include some version information in the Help -> About menu, but this is either limited to a V.M.R level (e.g. IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator 6.0) or it contains a developers build number (such as "ididev_041111b") that cannot be easily matched to a patch/fixpack level.

The ITIM Login Panel will show the version and FP level (I've seen it from FP36 and above).

Finding Version Information from the -v Option

Many of the executables support using a -v option to list the version. As with the GUI Help screens, this usually shows either too little (e.g. 6.0 build 27/03/2004) or too much information, where you get build numbers on individual components that cannot be mapped to fix packs levels.

Using package number for DB2

The DB2 components do not map fixpack numbers to VRML info. For example 8.1.2-96 of a db2 component does not mean DB2 8.1 Release 2 FP 96.

Determining IBM Tivoli Identity Manager Fixpack Level

IBM Tivoli Identity Manager 5.0

To determine the fixpack for IBM Tivoli Identity Manager 5.0, simply open the About page which looks like this:

Server name: secperf12
Version: 5.0.0.3
Build number: 200809241018
Maintenance level: IF0014
Build date: September 24 2008
Build time: 10:18:08 GMT-05:00

In this case, an IBM Tivoli Identity Manager 5.0 system with IF 14 applied.

IBM Tivoli Identity Manager 4.x

The easiest way to determine the fixpack for IBM Tivoli Identity Manager 4.5, 4.5.1, and 4.6 is to look at the Messages.properties file (in <ITIM_home>/data) as it is updated when a fixpack is applied. If you look at the top of the file you will see an entry similar to:

# Messages for html pages
# Sapphire Web Gui
# Copyright IBM
# dotNET VERSION 1.3.0
copyright=© 1999-2003 IBM. All Rights Reserved.<br/>\
 Tivoli Identity Manager 4.5.1 FP58 Build {0}
detailedCopyright=© 1999-2002 IBM. All rights reserved.<br/>\
	IBM, the Identity Manager logo, and Identity Manager are trademarks of IBM.
nochxboxchecked=No entry checked, Please check one or more entries.
subMenuCue=Select an option
refreshButtonAltKey=Refresh list

You can see Tivoli Identity Manager 4.5.1 FP58.

Build numbers

In addition you can look up the Fixpack number based on the build number included on the login screen in versions 4.5, 4.5.1, and 4.6. For version 5.0 see the About screen for Fixpack and build numbers.

IBM Tivoli Identity Manager 4.5.1

IBM Tivoli Identity Manager 4.6

IBM Tivoli Identity Manager Express 4.6

Finding build numbers

You can find the build numbers by looking at the FixPack readme files for versions 4.5, 4.5.1, and 4.6. There is a section that details the package contents and the MD5 checksums for the contents. The build number can be found in the install binaries. For example, the following is from TIM 4.6.0 FP 40's readme:

MD5 Checksums:

c35ddca991c6129cb3623be77b17bb4d 4.6.0-TIV-TIM-AIX-WAS-FP0040.zip
a09f35c9075794a2d3eadabad8d3c3d9 4.6.0-TIV-TIM-LNX-WAS-FP0040.zip
...
07c997450d1d6e78d9ce3f820185bf25 instaix_was_ITIM_5799.bin
8115ec266bb17fe2633302bc218cef27 insthpux_was_ITIM_5799.bin
c347e50f2fd5f58d7d1bed2ca44126ff instlinux_was_ITIM_5799.bin
78f671f0b265831277c0c46c44de077c instppc_was_ITIM_5799.bin
c8df714fbbdf7b053f28847d8af14e39 instsolaris_was_ITIM_5799.bin
05ee8d8148dcb906b79d0f56de495b66 instwin_was_ITIM_5799.exe
cadebea2e0d0fab6af4f86b32fb16663 instzlinux_was_ITIM_5799.bin
...

This shows FP40 has build number 5799.

Determining IBM Tivoli Identity Manager JAR versions

IBM Tivoli Identity Manager includes version information in the manifests of each product jar. A ManifestReader tool is included to easily display that information:

Example, run from /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/profileName/installedApps/cellName/ITIM.ear:

# java -cp itim_server.jar com.ibm.itim.serviceability.ManifestReader itim*jar
File Name: itim_api.jar
Entries:   481
IdentityManagerServiceability
Build-Date=September 25 2008
Build-Time=10:32:46 GMT-05:00
Build-Jar=itim_api.jar
Build-Product-Version=5.0.0.3
Build-Maintenance-Level=IF0014tf
Build-User=bpevans
Build-Number=200809251032
Build-Server=Indra.tivlab.raleigh.ibm.com
--------------
File Name: itim_common.jar
Entries:   613
IdentityManagerServiceability
Build-Date=September 25 2008
....
...
..

A frequent cause of java.rmi.MarshalException: CORBA MARSHAL exceptions are a mismatch between the ITIM libraries used on the remote application and the jars used by the server. This typically occurs when maintenance is applied to the ITIM Server and the development team is not sent the updated API libraries, itim_server.jar, itim_api.jar, etc. Use the command described above to get the JAR version information.

Determining Fixpack Levels for Middleware Components

The following pages go into detail on how to determine Fixpack Levels for the various ITIM middleware components:

• Determining IBM Tivoli Directory Server Fixpack Level
• Determining IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator Fixpack Level
• Determining IBM Tivoli Identity Manager RMI Dispatcher Version
• Determining IBM DB2 Fixpack Level
• Determining IBM WebSphere Fixpack Level
• Determining IBM WebSphere MQ version
• Determining Java Fixpack Level
• Determining IBM HTTP Server Fixpack Level
• Determining IBM GSKit Fixpack Level