PREVENTING SPOF ATTACKS When you think about it, our first job is to keep our systems up and running. Or at least walking, crawling, even staggering. But keep them up we must. The mail must get through, the system must stay up. We build redundancy at all sorts of levels into our systems because we want to avoid that dreaded disease known as SPOF - the Single Point of Failure. Outages are expensive Unscheduled outages bring your computer system to its knees. They can have similar effects on your nervous system. There is the... [More]

Tags:  mpio ibm hardware_management_conso... virtual_io dual_vios integrated_virtualization... hmc concurrent spof multi_path failover firmware shared_ethernet_adapter sea scheduled_outage aix vio ivm single_point_of_failure redundance dual_vio_server

<!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } A:link { so-language: zxx } --> Install X-Windows without the pane However hardline you are about the command line, there may just be a time when you need to use X-Windows. Alright, you might not actually need to, but it might just be good to know how to set it up anyway. The Windows menu utility WebSM comes in handy sometimes. I used it recently for the aixpert tool . It allowed me to have a... [More]

Tags:  aix x-windows websm x11_forwarding x11 putty wsm cde common_desktop_environmen... x-server

<!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } A:link { so-language: zxx } --> CAREFUL, THEY MIGHT HEAR YOU The word “auditor”, of course, comes from the Latin audire 'to hear', since audits were originally presented orally. Hearing is the auditors' profession, so there's no need to shout at them. If you say your system is... [More]

Tags:  security aix_security_expert auditor sox fpm xml sox_corbit aixpert sarbanes_oxley system_hardening aix

A NEW ADDITION You have a p5 or p6 which has been running fine for 2, 3 or 4 years but new applications or business expansion mean you're getting a brand new server as well. You have an HMC which is fairly up to date. How quickly can you get the server going, ready to install your first LPAR? E.T.A.: "pretty quickly" Assuming you've done your homework on sizing the system, cabling and power needs etc, you can get your system online pretty quickly. Rack-mount the server. This should be by far the slowest step. The reason is simple: you... [More]

Tags:  hmc power7 aix ibm power power6

High Level high[-er] availabilty options IBM HACMP (High Availability Cluster Multiprocessing) has been available since 1991.  It was renamed to IBM PowerHA and, more recently PowerHA System Mirror for AIX. While studying up on this recently, I came across some excellent comparisons between PowerHA , Live Partition Mobility and migration of Worload Partitions (WPARs) . This is a high-level comparison of how the three might help with managing outages and make for high er availability, even if they aren't all PowerHA. LPM and HA First, Live... [More]

Tags:  powerha live lpm migrate cookbook high_availability aix hacmp uptime workload_partition migration wpar outage live_partition_mobility

What? A dump? AIX, like many other operating systems, provides the capability of making a system dump. This is nothing to do with the Windows Recycle bin or a Trash folder, a kind of holding place in case you want to undelete something. ("Undelete"? Who invented that word?). This IBM technote on Managing System Devices explains that you need a system dump which "automatically copies selected areas of kernel data to the primary dump device." Care factor zero? Now "automatically copying selected areas of kernel... [More]

Tags:  kernel support aix device sysdumpdev dumpcheck capture crash dump data operating_system system

"AIX7 OB boarding now" Are you someone who is always behind the times? Do you buy the last ticket on the last train into the evacuated city? Well, take off your N minus ten leadweight and join the discerning  passengers of AIX Down Under on our first flight on AIX 7 Open Beta. AIX 7 Open Beta is available from a free download in ISO format, which means you could burn it onto a DVD or (better still) use the VIO server virtual media library . Of course you'll need to boot off the DVD / virtual optical device. It's a mksysb restore.... [More]

Tags:  aix beta install workload_partition mksysb aix7 open_beta wpar

POPULAR PUTTY   <!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } A:link { so-language: zxx } --> When it comes to connecting to your AIX system, Putty is a very popular option. It allows you to use an ssh connection, with cut-and-paste facilities and the ability to customise your sessions. You download Putty for free from the Putty Download Page and there are lots of sites out there which... [More]

Tags:  terminal ssh backspace tty cut_and_paste emulator aix selection box telnet unix rectangle putty

<!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } A:link { so-language: zxx } --> Using (or not using) NIM NIM - the AIX N etwork I nstallation M anager - allows you to install and maintain multiple hosts from the one master. Among people newer to AIX, NIM is often left on the backburner. With the VIO Virtual Media Library , a good deal of the NIM master's functionality has alternatives, at least if you're building LPARs which are VIO clients on the same system as the VIO... [More]

Tags:  vmlibrary network_installation_mana... nim resource aix lpp_source vio virtual_media_library spot