Here is a method you can use to reset a lost VIO padmin password from the HMC with zero downtime on the VIO server.   This is a somewhat involved process, but much easier than having to take a downtime on the VIO server to change the password.   This is a very challenging task because the viosvrcmd HMC command doesn't allow the command run on the VIO server to have a pipe ("|"), or any redirection ("<", ">") and doesn't allow for interactive input.   So this rules out using something like "chpasswd"... [More]

Tags:  password hmc aix viosvrcmd vio

IBM recently released a draft Redbook covering the upcoming HMC Version 8 Release 8.8.1 .  I've read through the Redbook, and here are the no nonsense highlights I noticed:   POWER5 servers won't be supported in HMC Version 8 POWER6/POWER7/POWER8 servers will be supported.  This one caught me by surprise and I am hoping that IBM will change this and end up supporting POWER5 on HMC Version 8 at some point in the future.   If you have POWER5 servers still in your... [More]

Tags:  aix hmc

Creating LPAR configurations from the HMC GUI can be slow and inefficient.  I prefer to use the HMC command line "mksyscfg" to create LPAR's.  The output of the "lssyscfg" (List system configuration) command is almost the same as the input to the "mksyscfg" (make system configuration) command.   Below are a couple of 1-line commands for the HMC that will transform the output of "lssyscfg" in to a useable "mksyscfg" command line.  This allows some interesting possibilities:    If you need to... [More]

Tags:  hmc aix script

Normally when you do an POWER system firmware update you have the following options for where to install the updates from:                                     I've always been interested in the "Hard drive" repository option.    However, there isn't very much information out there on how to use a "Hard drive repository".    The main question I had when I started looking in to the hard drive repository was:   How do I get firmware in to the hard drive repository in the first place?     The answer is kind of surprising...... [More]

Tags:  aix hmc power

Let me start by saying I am a huge fan of Power Systems, and this posting is just meant as constructive criticism to make a great platform even better. Here are 6 things in my opinion IBM could do to improve AIX and Power Systems. But first, let me mention a couple of things that in my opinion they have recently done right. #1 - including OpenSSH in the AIX 7.1 base media. And #2 - Including nmon by default in all recent versions of AIX. Thank you for now including both of these, they are both great tools that every AIX machine... [More]

Tags:  powervm vio hmc aix

If you have a large IBM System p environment with several HMC's it can be challenging to find which HMC manages any given LPAR.   It is usually possible to find out the HMC that manages the LPAR from the actual LPAR using the lsrsrc IBM.ManagementServer command (or lsrsrc IBM.MCP on AIX 7), however this has a couple of drawbacks.    The biggest drawback is if you are getting paged in the middle of the night because an LPAR just went down, you are obviously not going to be able to login to the LPAR to run this command to... [More]

Tags:  hmc pseries powervm aix

The HMC command line interface is awesome for scripting.  However, for day to day administrative tasks it can be hard to use due to the long command line syntax for most commands.  I have been using the HMC command line for years, and nearly anytime I want to use a command I have to reference the manual page to lookup the syntax.    I wanted to be able to use the HMC command line for common day to day administrative tasks, so I created a script called EZH - The Easy HMC Command Line Interface. For more info, see:  the EZH Sourceforge website   ... [More]

Tags:  hmc aix

Recently I've been spending a lot of time working on EZH - the "Easy HMC Command Line Interface".   For those of you not familiar with EZH, it is a script for the HMC that provides a very simple and easy to use interface to the HMC command line so that you can very quickly, efficiently, and easily complete day to day administration tasks from the command line.   It is very easy to install and doesn't require any modifications to the HMC (the script runs within the restricted HMC shell).  I released a new version today with many... [More]

Tags:  hmc aix ezh

A new version of prdiff is available that now includes support for Virtual Fibre Channel / NPIV and also improved dedicated CPU support.  For those of you unfamiliar with prdiff it is a script that compares running LPAR configurations with their profiles and shows differences.   This can prevent issues when you are shutting down and rebooting LPAR's.  For more info, see http://prdiff.sourceforge.net/    

Tags:  hmc aix

I've been working a script that compares the running configuration of an LPAR to its saved profile and generates a report of the differences.    Any time a server is shut down and then reactivated there is a potential for problems.   If changes were DLPAR'd in to the LPAR while it was running and not saved to its profile, the next time it is shut down and restarted it might have the wrong amount of resources or might not even boot.   Troubleshooting a non-booting LPAR in this state is very difficult. Profiles and the running configuration get... [More]

Tags:  aix hmc lpar

If you are anything like me, there has been several times over the years where you have said "Argh! If only I could make a VIO server a VSCSI client of another VIO server!" There are a couple of scenario's where this could be particularly useful: #1 - Setting up a VIO server as a Virtual Optical client of another VIO server.  This would be super useful for upgrades, rebuilds, disaster recovery, etc. of your VIO servers.  In a dual VIO environment you could have each VIO server be a client of the other VIO server for optical.   Check... [More]

Tags:  hmc vio vscsi aix

Introduction The HMC version 7.7.8.0 introduced a new "Current Config Sync" feature that is very, very useful. Anyone who has been working with Power Systems for long has been bitten by the fact that LPAR's saved "Profiles" and their "Running Configs" can get out of sync.  For example, if you DLPAR some new Virtual Adapters to your VIO server, and forget to add them to the profile as well, you might have serious issues the next time you shut down and reboot your VIO server.   This is because... [More]

Tags:  hmc aix

Version 1.2 of EZH (Easy HMC Command Line Interface) has been released.  EZH is a script for the IBM HMC console to provide an alternate, easier to use, command line interface for many common commands and the goal of the project is to make the HMC command line interface easier to use for day to day administration tasks.  It also includes an optional interactive menu to make it even easier to use. EZH is Open Source and 100% free, and is very easy to install.  For more information and to download, see the project page at... [More]

Tags:  hmc script aix ezh powervm

The HMC restricted shell doesn't include the "ps" or "uptime" commands which are sometimes very helpful when troubleshooting issues.   Below are a couple of methods to list running processes and find the HMC uptime.   List Running Processes The HMC is based on Linux, and the Linux kernel stores information about running processes under /proc.   Each running process has a process ID number (PID) and information about each PID is available at /proc/<pid>.     Based on this, we can create a primitive "ps"... [More]

Tags:  ezh aix hmc