Updated 28 January 2011 A few notes and clarifications :       What I call the Virtual Media Library is often also called the Virtual Media Repositor y (VMR). IBM documentation uses both terms. the syntax for creating the virtual optical device was incorrect. Details within the body of the post below. You may also be interested in an article of mine in the IBM Systems Magazine on the Virtual Media Library: Media Release - Keep software and OS backups handy with VIOS virtual media library       Using ISO... [More]

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What do all those numbers mean on oslevel -s? If you're looking for some guidance on understanding exactly what level of AIX you're running, you may like to read my article in the IBM Systems Magazine on  Understanding AIX versions . It answers questions such as: What's a TL? What's a Service Pack? When you run oslevel -s , what do all the numbers mean? Should you run a migration or a smitty update_all? What's the difference between applying and committing updates? Why does my oslevel go backwards after installing new software? Here's an... [More]

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Someone asked me to remove all empty directories in a particular path.   Option 1: rm -r You can remove ALL directories and all files using  rm -r You will end up with a nice clean system that way, and a new line on your resumé explaining why you left your job at short notice. DON'T TRY THIS AT WORK! For that matter, don't try any of these "solutions" until you've tried them somewhere which doesn't leave you wishing you'd never heard of AIX Down Under . Whenever I run any command to remove files or directories, I waste two seconds... [More]

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If you've ever needed to list the file systems in a volume group, you've probably done something like this: <!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } --> <!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } --> lsvg -l rootvg | awk '{ print $NF }' You would then need to strip out the header line and any logical volumes not... [More]

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Virtually converted to AIX 7 I just did my first migration of an LPAR to AIX 7.1. I chose to migrate my AIX 6.1 NIM server. I first downloaded AIX 7.1 from the Entitled Software Support web site . I copied the two ISO images to the Virtual Media Library on the VIO server, and I broadly followed the procedure outlined by my compatriot Chris Gibson in his article AIX Migration with File-Backed VIOS Devices . I gave the two ISO images shorter names when I copied them into /var/vio/VMLibrary. You can also rename them using the VIO server mkvopt or... [More]

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I noticed that the VIO server (VIOS) error log was reporting some failed paths for LUNs connecting to the SAN. The VIOS command errlog -ls (the equivalent of the AIX command errpt -a ) showed errors on the Fibre Channel adapter fscsi2: Diagnostic Analysis Diagnostic Log sequence number: 1126130 Resource tested:        fscsi2 Menu Number:            2603902 Description: Error Log Analysis has detected multiple communication errors.  These errors can be caused by attached devices, a switch, a hub, or a SCSI-to-FC convertor. If connected to... [More]

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There are lots of good reasons for having spare disk for rootvg, as I looked at in the post make way for rootvg . With virtual disks you can resize your volume group on the fly: Increase rootvg dynamically If your rootvg “disk” is actually virtual, such as a SAN LUN or a logical volume on the VIO server, then it usually can be expanded on the SAN (or using   extendlv   on the VIOS) and then recognised on the AIX LPAR using the   -g   flag of the   chvg command : chvg -g rootvg Note: this is supported for rootvg and... [More]

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MEET MIN, MAX and DES When you create an LPAR (Logical Partition), you have to create a profile to specify the processors, memory and I/O slots you want to allocate. I’m going to focus on memory right now, and specifically what the minimum , desired and maximum memory settings mean. You’ll see that the memory allocation can change while the LPAR is up and running using Dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) and DLPAR's can only go as low as min and as high as max. Makes sense, doesn't it? This is about setting up LPARs that use dedicated memory . I’m not... [More]

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  User names on AIX used to be restricted to eight characters. That's still the default setting but since AIX 5.3 you can increase the length up to an amazing 256 characters, if users really want to spend the morning logging in.   You can view the current maximum login name using: lsattr –El sys0 | grep max_logname Update: I incorrectly had listed the parameter as max_login. The correct parameter is max_logname. Thanks to jabber44 for the correction. or via smit System Environments -> Change / Show Characteristics of... [More]

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