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"Cloud Ready" AIX Images
PowerVC compatible "ready to deploy" images for AIX 7.1 TL 5 and AIX 7.2 TL 2 “In addition to installation images for AIX, "cloud" image formats are also made available that can be readily deployed with PowerVC. These images contain a default AIX base media install configuration that includes Cloud Init and its dependencies. The images can be obtained from the IBM Entitled System Support website or IBM Passport Advantage. For AIX 7.1 TL 5 SP0 and AIX 7.2 TL 2 SP0, the image files have the following names”.... [More]
Tags:  7.2 powervc cloud 7.1 ready images aix |
0042-358 niminit: The connect attribute may only be assigned a service value of "shell" or "nimsh".
I was working at a client site today, on a NIM master that I
configured a month or so ago. I was there to install the TSM backup client
software on about 30 or so LPARs. Of course I was going to use NIM to
accomplish this task. The software install via NIM worked for the majority of the LPARs
but I noticed a few of them were failing. This was very odd, as the last time
I’d use the same NIM method to install software, everything was fine. I suspected that perhaps something had changed on the client
LPARs...maybe with their /etc/niminfo... [More]
Tags:  chris nimsh gibson 3901 3902 nim aix |
A 'first look' at creating an AIX 5.2 WPAR on AIX 7.
I created my first ‘versioned’ AIX 5.2 WPAR on AIX 7 today. To get
me started, I followed the steps in the following guide from the AIX 7 Open
Beta On-line Information Centre: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/aix/v7r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.aix.cre/creconfig-create-wpar.htm In order to create the WPAR, I needed an AIX 5.2 mksysb file to
supply to the mkwpar command. Fortunately, I just happened to have an old AIX 5.2 mksysb image
in my archives! I then executed the following command to build the WPAR: # mkwpar -n wpar1... [More]
Tags:  versioned beta wpar aix gibson chris 5.2 open aix7 |
A journey into the world of VLAN tagging and Virtual I/O!
I just had to share this entertaining presentation with everyone. http://gibsonnet.net/AIX/ibm/Journey_in_VLAN_world.pps Or the PDF. It's not as interesting or fun, as the animations don't work but you get the idea. I'm sharing the PDF because it appears that you can open this file on Windows fine (in read-only mode) but on a Mac it prompts for a password without an option for opening in read-only. Shame. https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/cgaix/resource/Journey_in_VLAN_world.pdf It was... [More]
Tags:  powervm lemal chris aix vlan vio ibm bernard gibson |
A letter from Pavel Hampl - LPAR2RRD creator.
Interested in paid support for LPAR2RRD tool? Let’s all support Pavel and spread the word! From: Pavel
Hampl < pavel.hampl@cz.ibm.com > Date: 21 July 2011 3:00:19 AM AEST To: undisclosed-recipients:; Subject: LPAR2RRD professional support announcement Hi Everyone, You are receiving that mail because we have been either in touch in regards of LPA2RRD tool about year ago or you are on LPAR2RRD mailing list. I’ve decided to make professional paid support of LPAR2RRD. Here are my reasons which led me to that thought: - I have not... [More]
Tags:  lpar2rrd chris aix gibson |
AIX 7 Open Beta is live - it's time to test!
OK, it’s
official. The AIX 7 Open Beta is now available for testing! An
overview of the program is available here: https://www14.software.ibm.com/iwm/web/cc/earlyprograms/websphere/aix7ob/index.shtml Essentially
this program is designed to give IBM customers, ISVs and IBM BPs the
opportunity to gain early experience with the latest release of AIX prior to
general availability. This is a great time to join forces and help IBM mould
the next generation of the AIX OS. I got
involved in the AIX 6 Open
Beta back in 2007 . It was a... [More]
Tags:  chris 7 beta gibson aix open |
AIX 7.1 – DSM dgetmacs.
I received an email this week from a
colleague that worked with me on the NIM
Redbook back in 2006. He was experiencing an issue with DSM and NIM. He was
attempting to use the dgetmacs command to obtain the MAC address of the network adapters on an LPAR. The
command was failing to return the right information. This was the output from his attempt
with dgetmacs : # dgetmacs -n lpar1 Using an adapter type of "ent". Could not dsh to node lpar1. Attempting to use openfirmware method to
collect MAC addresses. Acquiring adapter... [More]
Tags:  nim aix chris dgetmacs 7.1 gibson dsm |
AIX Double Boot!
This is something
that I experience on all new Power/AIX systems that I install: System migrated to AIX
5.3 (or later) might experience double boot When booting AIX Version 5.3 (or
later) on a system that has previously been running an earlier release of AIX, you
may notice that the system automatically reboots and restarts the boot process.
This is how the firmware processes changed information in the boot image. This
reboot also occurs if the process is reversed. A system previously running AIX
5.3 (or later) that is booting a... [More]
Tags:  boot chris gibson double aix |
AIX Live Update - No Reboot Required! Non-disruptive OS Updates!
AIX Live Update Starting with AIX Version 7.2, the AIX operating system provides the AIX Live Update function which eliminates downtime associated with patching the AIX operating system. Previous releases of AIX required systems to be rebooted after an interim fix was applied to a running system. This new feature allows workloads to remain active during a Live Update operation and the operating system can use the interim fix immediately without needing to restart the entire system. In the first release of this feature, AIX Live Update will... [More]
Tags:  chris kernel aix update gibson live 7.2 lku |
AIX Live Update using NIM
In my previous post on AIX Live Updates I discussed how to use the geninstall command to perform a non-disruptive (ifix) update on an AIX system. In this post I wanted to show you how to perform the same task using NIM. NIM can be used to start an AIX Live Update operation on a target machine (NIM client) either from a NIM master or from the NIM client itself (with nimclient ). Note: The AIX Live Update operation started by NIM calls the hmcauth command during the cust operation to authenticate to the NIM client with the HMC by... [More]
Tags:  lku aix blog chris nimclient nim 7.2 live update gibson |
AIX multibos mksysb migration
I’ve
written about multibos before, here and here . But recently I
started experimenting with multibos mksysb migration. A customer asked me how
this worked and apart from a high-level view I wasn’t able to provide any real
world experience, so I thought I’d give it a try. What follows is just a ‘brain
dump’ from my quick test. First of all
this isn’t really a migration. It just simply populates a second instance of
AIX with a higher-version. It doesn’t really migrate (or merge) your existing
configuration into the second instance. So... [More]
Tags:  mksysb aix migration multibos chris gibson |
AIX or Linux on POWER?
IBM made some announcements today relating to
their latest POWER7 server offerings. The new line of systems includes new
entry level systems and the highly anticipated high-end system, the POWER7 795 !
They also officially outlined some of
the new features available in AIX 7.1. You can review the details here .
I’ve discussed some of these new features here and here .
The official AIX 7.1 announcement details are available here . The announcement got me thinking about my
recent customer engagements and why some have chosen to deploy... [More]
Tags:  chris linux gibson ibm power aix |
AIX rootvg failure monitoring
AIX has a new “critical volume group” capability which will monitor for the loss or failure of a volume group. You can apply this to any volume group, including rootvg. If applied to rootvg, then you can monitor for the loss of the root volume group. This feature may be useful if your AIX LPAR experiences a loss of SAN connectivity e.g. total loss of access to SAN storage and/or all SAN switches. Typically, when this happens, AIX will continue to run, in memory for a period of time and will not immediately crash. Often you... [More]
Tags:  failure gibson aix chris monitoring vg group volume critical cgaix chvg rootvg |
AIX snap - Prevent dump collection
You can specify the –Z flag with the AIX snap command to prevent it from collecting system dump data. The flag is not shown in the man page for snap . However, it is listed in the usage information. # oslevel -s 7100-03-03-1415 # sysdumpdev -L Device name: /dev/lg_dumplv Major device number: 10 Minor device number: 11 Size: 174708224 bytes Uncompressed Size: ... [More]
Tags:  prevent dump -z gibson snap chris collection aix |
AIX sudo: no tty present and no askpass program specified
Before I describe the sudo problem I hit, I will tell you that the root cause of the problem is evident in the following output: # mount node mounted mounted over vfs date options -------- --------------- --------------- ------ ------------ --------------- ... [More]
Tags:  to tty askpass chris /etc/sudo.conf blog gibson resolve debug unable aix via present /etc/filesystems not program mounted no and sudo specified /proc sudo: |
AIX WPAR tips and tricks
Here’s some handy tips and tricks for managing WPARs in your AIX environment. How to share a global file system with a WPAR. - In the Global. root@750lpar11]/ # uname -W 0 - Global File System that you want to share with the WPAR (750wpar2). [root@750lpar11]/ # df -g /cg Filesystem GB blocks Free %Used Iused %Iused Mounted on /dev/cglv 1.98 0.30 ... [More]
Tags:  chris tricks namefs gibson partition tips vwpar rootvg woroload wpar migrate aix versioned |
AIX, LPM & Partition ID sorcery! Why does AIX report that my partition ID has changed after LPM when it hasn't?
I LPM'ed an AIX LPAR from Frame A to Frame B. The LPAR id before the LPM was 99 and after the LPM it's still 99. And the system id has changed, as expected. Good. Before migration. root@lpar1 / # uname -L 99 lpar1 root@lpar1 / # lsattr -El sys0 -a systemid systemid IBM, 017268B60 Hardware system identifier False After migration. root@lpar1 / # uname -L 99 lpar1 root@lpar1 / # lsattr -El sys0 -a systemid systemid IBM, 0157F5B16 Hardware system identifier False Great, that's exactly... [More]
Tags:  last uname lpm chris since aix id partition changed boot gibson |
AME activation key identification
In a previous post I discussed how you can identify some of the different types of a PowerVM Capacity
on Demand (CoD) activation keys from IBM. Recently I had to Activate Memory Expansion (AME) on a
couple of POWER7 systems. I discovered that all of the keys contained a similar
string. It appears that if a CoD key contains the string CA1F0000000800 then it is safe to assume it will activate
AME for a particular system. e.g. 9741EF3AE6969F17 CA1F0000000800 419D 937A1240F00F5B05 CA1F0000000800 413D And while I’m talking about AME,... [More]
Tags:  lshwres ca1f0000000800 active_memory_expansion powervm ame power7 chris_gibson curr_mem_expansion chhwres mem_expansion pend_mem_expansion aix dlpar |
Automatically backup VIOS configuration changes
The latest release of the VIOS provides a way to automatically backup your virtual device configuration whenever it changes. From the IBM Knowledge Center for POWER8: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER8/p8hcg/p8hcg_viosbr.htm "The viosbr command automatically creates a backup, whenever there are any configuration changes. This functionality is known as the autoviosbr backup. It is triggered every hour, and checks if there are any configuration changes, or any other changes. If it detects any changes, a backup... [More]
Tags:  blog /usr/ios/sbin/autoviosbr autobackup vios chris autoviosbr aix powervm gibson viosbr |
Can't change max_transfer for a VSCSI hdisk? Check your vtopt devices!
When attempting to change the max_transfer attribute on a VSCSI hdisk, the following error was displayed: #
chdev -l hdisk0 -a max_transfer= 0x100000 -P Method
error (/etc/methods/chgdisk):
0514-018 The values specified for the following attributes
are not valid: max_transfer
Maximum TRANSFER Size The
desired value, 0x100000, was an allowed value for this type of device (as shown
in the lsattr output below): #
lsattr -El hdisk0 PCM
PCM/friend/vscsi
Path Control... [More]
Tags:  rmdev max_transfer vtopt0 rmvdev aix vios chdev hdisk cd0 virtual_optical vio |
catman -w on AIX.
Have you
ever encountered this error message on AIX before? # man -k loopmount man: 0703-310 file man not found. Create the whatis database using the <catman -w> command
Of course
you have! If you’ve ever installed AIX from scratch then you have undoubtedly
seen this message. And of
course, you dutifully executed the ‘ catman –w ’ command to rectify the situation. Didn’t you? But what if
‘ catman –w ’ doesn’t work as expected? I recently came
across this minor issue. Running catman produced the following error... [More]
Tags:  gibson whatis catman chris aix man |
Checking num_cmd_elems for VFC adapters with kdb
This entry is
similar in theme to one of my previous posts about verifying your hdisk queue_depth settings with kdb . This time we want to check if an attribute for a Virtual FC (VFC)
adapter has been modified and whether or not AIX has been restarted since the
change. The attribute I’m interested in is num_cmd_elems .
This value is often changed from its default settings, in AIX environments, to improve
I/O performance on SAN attached storage. From
kdb you can identify the VFC
adapters configured on an AIX system using the vfcs... [More]
Tags:  odm -p kdb lsattr chris_gibson num_cmd_elems adapter vfcs aix chdev reboot vfc |
Checking your queue depth with kdb.
Just say you
change the queue_depth on a hdisk
with chdev –P . This updates the devices
ODM information only, not its running configuration. The new value will take
effect next time I reboot the system. So now I have a different queue_depth in the ODM compared to the
devices current running config (in the kernel). What if I
forget that I’ve made this change to the ODM and forget to reboot the system
for many months? Someone complains of an I/O performance issue....I check the
queue_depths and find they appear to be set appropriately... [More]
Tags:  chris lsattr 7.1 chdev queue_depth aix odm -p kdb 6.1 gibson |
Cluster Aware AIX
Using Cluster Aware AIX with AIX 7.1 you can create a cluster of AIX
nodes. This interconnected cluster of nodes can immediately provide several
capabilities, such as: ·
Clusterwide event management. ·
Communication and storage events: o
Node UP and node DOWN o
Network adapter UP and DOWN o
Network address change o
Point-of-contact UP and DOWN o
Disk UP and DOWN o
Predefined and user-defined events ·
Clusterwide storage naming service ·
Clusterwide command... [More]
Tags:  caa_private0 caa event aware ahafs cluster mkcluster aix cldisk1 7.1 lscluster |
Collecting PowerVP system level data from the AIX command line.
It’s possible to collect PowerVP system level agent data from the AIX command line. You can collect this data by running Java and specifying the powervp.jar file, as shown below. You need to specify the hostname, username and password for the host where the system level agent resides. In the following example the hostname/IP address is 10.1.1.99 and the username/password is root and mypass1. I found the PowerVP JAR file in the default PowerVP install directory, which (on AIX) is usually /IBM/PowerVP/... [More]
Tags:  jar line aix chris gibson java powervp command |
Collecting WWPNs for new Virtual Fibre Channel Adapters
I was
collecting a list of WWPNs for a bunch of new AIX LPARs I was installing from
scratch. There were two ways I could find the WWPN for a virtual Fibre Channel
adapter on a new LPAR i.e. one that did not yet have an operating system
installed. I started by
checking the LPAR properties from the HMC (as shown below). To speed
things up I moved to the HMC command line tool, lssyscfg , to display the
WWPNs (as shown below). hscroot@hmc1:~> lssyscfg -r prof -m 750-2
-F virtual_fc_adapters --filter lpar_names=lpar1... [More]
Tags:  vfc wwpn sed lssyscfg aix fibre gibson hmc channel chris virtual |
Configuring AIX as an iSCSI target.
Configuring
AIX as an iSCSI target. On
the iSCSI target host (server). Host
is running AIX 7.1. Install
the devices.tmiscsw.rte fileset. This fileset can be found on the AIX 7.1
Expansion Pack CD. l273pp043_pub[/]
> oslevel -s 7100-00-02-1041 l273pp043_pub[/]
> lslpp -l devices.tmiscsw.rte
Fileset
Level State Description
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Path:
/usr/lib/objrepos
devices.tmiscsw.rte 7.1.0.0
COMMITTED iSCSI Target... [More]
Tags:  iscsi target chris aix gibson |
Convert rootvg file systems to JFS2 using alt_disk_copy
Q: Does
alt_disk_copy convert JFS filesystems to JFS2? A: Yes! Starting at 6100-04 , a new
flag was introduced that would convert JFS filesystems to JFS2. We now have the
-T which does the conversion. http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=isg3T1011055 Here’s an example of converting
rootvg file systems from JFS to JFS2 using alt_disk_copy .
My lab system was migrated from AIX
5.3 to 7.1 via nimadm . Unfortunately, nimadm does not convert JFS file
systems to JFS2 during the migration. So, in this case, even though... [More]
Tags:  convert chris_gibson jfs2 aix alt_disk_copy conversion jfs |
Convert rootvg JFS file systems to JFS2 with alt_disk_copy
Starting with AIX 6.1 (TL4?), you can use the alt_disk_copy command to convert rootvg
file systems from jfs to jfs2. The man page for the alt_disk_copy command
states the following: -T
Indicates that you want to convert JFS file systems to JFS2 file systems during
the process of recreating the rootvg volume group on target disks. As an example, to clone a running systems rootvg to hdisk2, and convert
the rootvg file systems from JFS to JFS2, you would run the following command: #
alt_disk_copy -T -d hdisk2 Good to know!
Tags:  alt_disk_copy chris convert jfs2 aix gibson jfs |
Creating a CAA cluster on AIX 7.1.
In this post I’ll demonstrate how to
create a Cluster Aware AIX (CAA) cluster on AIX 7.1. I’ll create a simple
two-node CAA cluster. I’ll then check the cluster status and, finally, remove
the cluster. Before I start, I make sure that both
nodes have entries in /etc/hosts on both systems. node1[/] > grep node /etc/hosts 172.29.134.169
node1 172.29.152.160
node2 node2[/] > grep node /etc/hosts 172.29.134.169
node1 172.29.152.160
node2 I verify that cluster services are not
active on both nodes. node1[/tmp/cg]... [More]
Tags:  creating mkcluster lscluster caavg_private caa 7.1 cluster chris gibson aware creation aix |
Defining a new Network Install Interface on a NIM master.
OK, so I had
a NIM master with two network interfaces, en0 and en1. The en0 interface was connected
to the 192.168.10.0 network and the en1 interface was connected to the 10.1.1.0 network. When the
master was initially configured, we chose en0 as the primary install interface.
The master could now install NIM clients on the 192.168.10.0 network, without
any additional NIM network configuration. root@nim1 /
# ifconfig –a en0:... [More]
Tags:  new gibson network install nim installation chris interface aix manager |
Display VCPU affinity with PowerVP
This post introduces two new features that I came across recently and found rather interesting. The first relates to PowerVP (VCPU affinity) and the second to POWER8 (Flexible SMT). I’m particularly impressed by this new feature in PowerVP version 1.1.2 (SP1). You can view CPU and memory affinity information directly from the PowerVP GUI. From the PowerVP Installation and User Guide: “If you go to the View menu and select the Display CPU affinity information, the CPU utilization information will be replaced in... [More]
Tags:  powervm chris gibson aix smt 1.1.2 vcpu powervp power8 flexible affinity |
DLPAR and AIX 5.3
I’ve shared
my tips for resolving DLPAR problems in the past . So this week, when one of my
colleagues was experiencing an issue with DLPAR, I referred him to my blog post
and suggested he follow the troubleshooting steps. He did so and I went about
my business. Later that same day I asked him how he had fared. He told me that
DLPAR was still not working on his particular AIX LPAR. It was an AIX 5.3
system and he was attempting to another Virtual Processor to the LPAR. He
expressed his frustration with the situation, so I offered to take... [More]
Tags:  ibm.drm csm.client csm_core aix lssrc dlpar csm_client lpar lsrsrc chris_gibson |
DLPAR event history on the HMC
You can use the HMC lssvcevents command to view DLPAR event history. In the following example, I’m looking for “Add processor” related DLPAR events, over the last 30 days, for a specific LPAR. $ lssvcevents -t console -d 30 | egrep 'Add processor|DLPAR' | grep s82861p22_nim time=12/01/2016 00:48:33,text=HSCE2209 User name hscroot: DLPAR Add processor resources to partition s82861p22_nim succeeded on managed system Server-8286-42A-SN214F55V Search for all DLPAR events over the last 30 days. $... [More]
Tags:  gibson aix hmc dlpar lssvcevents events history chris |
DLPAR not doing it for you anymore?
I received an email from one of my customers recently that simply said: “mate …on lpar30, for some reason the IBM.DRM and others are failing to start .. um .. any chance you could have a quick look at that ?” So I asked, “OK, so this use to work right?”. To which I received a relatively confused reply, ” .....yep it did....actually no....it’s never worked....or has it???...I’m not sure... ”. Based on my experience, the most common issue that prevents DLPAR operations... [More]
Tags:  gibson chris dlpar aix |
Does AIX support passwords longer than 8 characters? Yes!
Prior to AIX 5.3 TL7 and AIX 6.1,
there was an 8 character limit on AIX user passwords. If you need passwords of
greater than 8 characters then you must enable one of the supplied Loadable
Password Algorithms (LPAs). The following table lists the available algorithms
and the limitations of each: For example, to enable the MD5 algorithm
I can modify /etc/security/login.cfg file with the chsec command as follows:
# chsec -f
/etc/security/login.cfg -s usw -a pwd_algorithm=smd5 # tail -2
/etc/security/login.cfg
... [More]
Tags:  /etc/security/pwdalg.cfg characters smd5 pwd_algorithm /usr/lib/security/smd5 aix /etc/security/login.cfg support 8 gibson clpasswd chris greater than for passwords |
Experience with RootVG WPARs
I finally got access to a system where I could test RootVG WPARs
a little more extensively than I have in the past. If you are not sure what a RootVG WPAR is then I suggest you
take a look at the following IBM documentation: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/aix/v6r1/topic/com.ibm.aix.wpar/rootvg-wpars.htm I performed the following test today, just to prove a theory. The
result was interesting, so I thought I would share it with you on my blog. First, I started with an AIX 7.1 (7100-00-01-1037) system that
had one spare vscsi... [More]
Tags:  chris rootvg gibson aix workload partitions wpars |
Flicking through the latest AIX enhancements.
After reading about
the latest AIX updates here: http://t.co/bkIpnXkS I decided to download and install the latest TL & SP for AIX 6.1 and 7.1
and take a peek at some of the latest features. Here’s what I found
so far. There appears to be
some new integration between NIM and the VIOS. The nim command now has an updateios option e.g. nim
–o updateios. So you can update
your VIO servers from NIM now. This is nice. On my lab NIM master
I checked the nim man page and found
the following new information: NIM
[/] # oslevel -s... [More]
Tags:  updates chris 6100-07-02-1150 aix 7100-01-02-1150 gibson 2011 |
Hacking cloud-init on AIX.
There may be better ways to do this, and if there are, please let me know. But lately I've been "hacking around" with cloud-init on AIX and trying to make it behave the way I want it to. There were two problems I faced and solved. My first challenge. The AIX /etc/hosts file isn't updated with the IP address and hostname of the new AIX VM after deployment from PowerVC. To work-around this niggle*, I added the following short but effective shell script to the Activation Input in the PowerVC GUI. #!/bin/ksh... [More]
Tags:  /etc/hosts update hack resolv.conf chris cloud-init aix gibson hostname |
Has your IBM XL C/C++ for AIX software evaluation license expired?
Has your IBM XL C/C++ for AIX software evaluation license expired? You can work around this little problem temporarily by placing the following environment variable in /etc/profile. XLC_EXTEND_EVAL=yes According to the IBM support site, this will extend the XLC license to a total of 74 days. https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21498670 It appears to work. Before the change, I was unable to compile anything. Note the highlighted text below. # /usr/vac/bin/xlc cgc.c The license for... [More]
Tags:  chris aix evaluation expired gibson xlc license |
Help! My mksysb is only backing up 4 files!
I enjoy it when I open my email in the morning and find a new message with a subject line of “ weird one… .”! I immediately prepare myself for whatever challenge awaits. Fortunately I do delight in helping others with their AIX challenges so I usually open these emails first and start to diagnose and troubleshoot the problem! This week I was contacted by someone that was having a little trouble with a mksysb backup on one of their AIX systems. “Hi Chris, This one has me stumped, any ideas? I’ll have... [More]
Tags:  chris up backing files blog gibson aix 4 mksysb |
How much memory or CPU will that CoD code activate anyway?
This little tip was passed on to me by
a friendly IBM hardware engineer many years ago. When entering a capacity on demand
(CoD) code into a Power system, you can tell how many processors and how much
memory will be activated, just by looking at the code you’ve given by IBM. For example, the following codes, when
entered for the appropriate Power system, will enable 4 processors (POD) and
64GB of memory (MOD). I can also tell* that once the VET code is entered, this
system will be licensed for PowerVM Enterprise Edition (2C28). ... [More]
Tags:  cod power gibson mod aix activation demand pod capacity chris code on vet powervm |
HSCLA27C, reserve_policy and LPM validation error.
A customer was attempting to move an LPAR from one POWER7 750
to another POWER7 750 using Live Partition Mobility (LPM). But he was receiving
the following error message when performing an LPM validation. This was an
easy one to fix. The reserve policy on the hdisk on the VIOS (yes, it was a
single VIO server not dual VIOS, don’t ask why!) was set to PR_exclusive instead of no_reserve. $ lsmap
–vadapter vhost0 SVSA Physloc Client
Partition ID... [More]
Tags:  aix live mobility lpm partition gibson hscla27c reserve_policy chris |
In a perfect world....rootvg would always reside on hdisk0.
In a perfect world, 99.9% of AIX administrators would prefer their systems to look like this: # lspv | grep rootvg hdisk0 00c342c68dfcbdfb rootvg active However, in reality, 99.9% of AIX administrators live with systems that look something like this: # lspv | grep rootvg hdisk39... [More]
Tags:  hdisk0 chris_gibson rendev rootvg aix |
Installing and using PowerVP on AIX
IBMs PowerVP tool became available in November 2013. It was designed to provide Power Systems administrators with performance information in an enhanced visual format. The aim was to accelerate the identification of performance bottlenecks so that performance analysts could make better decisions based on more detailed and comprehensive data from POWER7 (and POWER8) systems. PowerVP presents both System (frame) and Partition level views of performance data. This has not been possible in the past using any single tool. Administrators would... [More]
Tags:  aix chris java powervp gibson |
Investigating AIX system crashes with minidump
The AIX minidump facility was introduced with AIX 5.3 TL3. A mini dump is a small compressed dump that is stored to NVRAM when a system crashes or a dump is initiated, and then written to the AIX error log on reboot. It can be used to see some of the system’s state and do some debugging when a full dump is not available. It can also be used to get a quick snapshot of a crash without having to transfer the entire dump from the crashed system to IBM support. Please refer to the following, official guide, on " How to examine a... [More]
Tags:  sdduserinterfac pcmusergetdevin gibson power8 crash minidump trc_generate aix errpt wpar dump chris 128 blog system e880 sddpcm mdmprpt cores trc_inmem_recor |
Is large send offload enabled on my AIX system?
Enabling TCP large send offload (LSO), on AIX, is generally considered a good thing. It helps with overall network performance. Taking advantage of networking large-send large-receive https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/wikis/home?lang=en#!/wiki/W51a7ffcf4dfd_4b40_9d82_446ebc23c550/page/Taking%20advantage%20of%20networking%20large-send%20large-receive TCP large send offload “This option improves the performance on 10 Gigabit Ethernet and faster adapters for workloads that manage data streaming (such as file transfer... [More]
Tags:  netstat gibson aix chris lso offload packets send large |
Is my POWER7 system AME capable? Is AME supported with SAP in production?
A colleague of mine contacted me during the week to ask how one could
determine if a POWER7 system was capable of Active Memory Expansion. I thought
I'd share my response with everyone who follows my blog. You can check if the system is capable of providing Active Memory
Expansion (AME), from the HMC command line using the lssyscfg command, as shown here: hscroot@hmc1:~>
lssyscfg -r sys -m Server-8233-E8B-SN1000 -F active_mem_expansion_capable 1 Alternatively you can view the capabilities of
the managed system from the HMC GUI,... [More]
Tags:  ame gibson power7 sap lparstat hmc memory chris amepat expansion active aix lssyscfg |
Is that a versioned WPAR I see before me?
Is that a versioned WPAR? Use the lswpar command and the –G option to determine the WPAR type. Yeah, I could use clogin and then run oslevel , but this is faster! [root@gibopvc1]/ # lswpar -G p8wpar1 ================================================================= p8wpar1 - Active ================================================================= Type: S RootVG... [More]
Tags:  versioned aix gibson type wpar chris |
Is there a way to find on which processor a process is executing?
A question I received this week from a customer. Hi Chris, Is there a way to find on which processor a process is executing?
If I’ve used binprocessor, ps –emo THREAD, would show which processor a
process is bound too. But when that’s not been used, what are the options? The ps command will
only help if we bind a process to a specific CPU. For example, here we can see
that the bootpd process has been
bound (and then un-bound) on processor 3: # bindprocessor -q The available processors are: 0 1 2 3 # bindprocessor 8585302 3 ... [More]
Tags:  chris trace gibson aix curt |