Recent releases of AIX installation media (for 7.1 and 6.1) now contain the OpenSSH base installation filesets. This is very handy; we no longer need to download or locate the software from other sources.   One thing to consider is what this means for future AIX migrations.   If you are migrating a system (that already has a version of SSH installed) to AIX 7.1 then you may notice that the first time you attempt to connect to the server (after the 7.1 migration) the following ssh message appears:   root@nim1 : / # ssh aixlpar1... [More]

Tags:  warning: has host aix remote identification nim changed lppsource migration ssh

Until recently, if you were configuring a new LPAR with virtual FC adapters you couldn’t force it to log into the SAN before an operating system (such as AIX) was installed. I’ve written about this before (see link below). I also offered a way to work around this issue.   https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/cgaix/entry/new_hmc_commands_chnportlogin_and_lsnportlogin_login_in_virtual_fibre_channel_adapters_for_npiv_client_lpars1?lang=en   As mentioned in my post, there are new HMC commands to force a new LPAR to connect... [More]

Tags:  npiv virtual_fibre_channel powervm chris_gibson aix power_systems vios vfc

The latest versions of AIX now allow largesend on virtual adapters to remain persistent across reboots. I can’t find any information for this attribute in the AIX 7.1 Information center yet.   The new attrribute is called mtu_bypass and can be changed with the chdev command. e.g   ; AIX 7.1 TL1 SP2. # oslevel -s 7100-01-02-1150   ; LARGESEND is off . # ifconfig en1 en1: flags=1e080863,480<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,GROUPRT,64BIT, CHECKSUM_OFFLOAD(ACTIVE),CHAIN >         inet 10.153.20.46 netmask 0xffff0000... [More]

Tags:  aix mtu_bypass on virtual adapters ethernet largesend chris_gibson

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 aix jfs2 alt_disk_copy jfs conversion

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

I’ve received a couple of requests for an example of using a post migration script with nimadm . What follows is a simple example of using such a resource with NIM. If you are not familiar with the nimadm tool then perhaps you’d like to start first by reading my article on using nimadm to migrate to AIX 6.1.   The nimadm utility can perform both pre and post migration tasks. This is accomplished by running NIM scripts either before or after a migration. The tool accepts the following flags for pre and post migration script resources:  ... [More]

Tags:  script aix nim post-migration chris_gibson nimadm

Make sure you are monitoring file system space on your VIOS.   Why?   If you run out of space in the root file system, odd things can happen when you try to map virtual devices to virtual adapters with mkvdev .   For example, a colleague of mine was attempting to map a new hdisk to a vhost adapter on a pair of VIOS. The VIOS was running a recent version of code. He received the following error message (see below). It wasn’t a very helpful message. At first I thought it was due to the fact that he had not set the reserve_policy attribute... [More]

Tags:  this_may_or_may_not_indic... root_filesystem_is_full vios aix mkvdev cli_debug=33 powervm 0514-548 chris_gibson the_command's_response_wa...

Are you backing up your AIX systems over Virtual Ethernet adapters? Of course you are, who isn’t right? Are your backup server and clients on the same physical POWER system? You are most likely backing up over Virtual Ethernet to another AIX LPAR that is running your enterprise backup software, such as TSM or Legato Networker for example. And you probably have a dedicated private virtual network (and adapters) on both the clients and the server to handle the traffic for the nightly backups. The next question is, have you tuned your... [More]

Tags:  min_buf_huge=96 backup netstat slow hypervisor -a max_buf_huge=128 aix tsm chris_gibson min_buf_large=96 max_buf_large=256 min_buf_medium=512 networker max_buf_medium=1024 adapter -l virtual ent1 chdev –a ethernet

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

Starting with AIX 7.1, CSM is no longer supported or available. It has been replaced by Distributed Systems Managment (DSM).    Section 5.2 of the IBM AIX 7.1 Differences Guide Redbook provides details of the new DSM capabilities.   Fortunately DSM still provides access to the dsh command.   I’ve written about how I’ve used this utility in the past . The new dsh command (and other tools) are provided in the new DSM filesets named dsm.core and dsm.dsh .   root@nim# lslpp -L dsm*   Fileset                       Level   State   Type... [More]

Tags:  run remote if exit installed pwdadm a accepted. expired code dping has csm been not aix you have license had dsh shell -l new admchg release csmconfig 255 2651-095 or chpasswd

So you’re configuring a new PowerHA 6.1 cluster and you decide to check if the clinfoES subsystem is running. You run the following command:   # lssrc -a | grep cluster clstrmgrES       cluster          2883628      active   Hmmm, clinfoES is not listed. To ensure that is clinfoES is shown in lssrc output, in both inactive and active states, run the following command on all nodes in the cluster:   # chssys -s clinfoES –d   And now clinfoES is shown:   #lssrc -a | grep cluster clstrmgrES       cluster          2883628      active... [More]

Tags:  inactive -d aix output hacmp chris_gibson when appearing powerha clinfoes chssys lssrc in not clstrmgres -s

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

It’s no secret that I like NIM. I’ve written about NIM on several occasions, in Redbooks, technical articles and on my blog. It’s a great tool for installing and maintaining AIX. Occasionally though, it can throw you an unusual error or two when things go wrong. For the uninitiated resolving these errors can be challenging.   Here’s a couple of NIM related questions I received recently. Both are troubleshooting queries.   “I'm getting the following error when trying to create a NIM lpp_source for AIX 6.1” :  ... [More]

Tags:  resource to filesystem m_mk_lpp_source: oslevel space failed all check a "master" 0042-185 on nim already copy due not exists aix c_ch_nfsexp: instfix rest or permissions link filesets 0042-081 nfs found. for /etc/.tmp.nim.exports export were and

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

When you upgrade PowerHA (formerly HACMP) don’t forget to check/update your TSM client as well!   We successfully upgraded from PowerHA 5.4 to PowerHA 6.1 SP6 first.   # halevel -s 6.1.0 SP6   We found that our DB2 backups to TSM were no longer working.   $ db2adutl query   Error: Initialize environment failed with TSM return code 4602   In the TSM error log file we also saw the following message repeated over and over:   # tail -1 dsmerror_db2_ha.log 10/17/11   12:42:57 ANS1478E CLUSTERNODE is set to YES but the cluster software is not... [More]

Tags:  ans1677w 6.1 5.4 powerha 4602 gibson aix return chris mailprog ans1478e tsm clusternode code hacmp

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:  chris updates 6100-07-02-1150 aix 7100-01-02-1150 gibson 2011

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:  lsattr chris 7.1 chdev queue_depth odm aix -p kdb gibson 6.1

  I’ve been working with a customer recently on an issue with nimadm . They were attempting to migrate a system from AIX 5.3 to 7.1 using nimadm . The NIM client AIX level was 5.3 TL12 SP4 and the NIM master was running AIX 7.1 TL1 SP1.   lpar1 : / # oslevel -s 5300-12-04-1119   root@nim1 : / # oslevel -s 7100-01-01-1141   They were running the following nimadm command:   # nimadm -j nimadmvg -c lpar1 -s spotaix710101 -l lpp_sourceaix710101 -d hdisk1 -Y   The nimadm operation would always fail at phase 11:  ... [More]

Tags:  altinst_rootvg attention: client nimadm: cloning error returned multibos 6 unexpected init_multibos() 11 7.1 phase alt_disk_copy: nimadm on result an .1 0505-218 5.3 aix 0505-187

Following on from my previous post, on working with scalable VGs.   https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/cgaix/entry/working_with_aix_scalable_volume_groups1?lang=en   You may find yourself in a situation where you’d like to convert a VG to scalable.   For example, you might start off with a normal VG i.e. one that can support a maximum of 256 LVs and 32 PVs.   # mkvg -s 512M -y myvg hdisk5 myvg   # lsvg myvg VOLUME GROUP:        myvg                      VG IDENTIFIER:   00f6027300004c0000000133aa24d1f6 VG STATE:... [More]

Tags:  aix lvm chvg pv gibson convert -g mkvg manager hdisk scalable chris conversion group groups volume max vg physical lv logical

Scalable volume groups first appeared in AIX 5.3. They allow a maximum of 1024 physical volumes and 4096 logical volumes per volume group. This is pretty cool for large systems. In the ‘old days’ we could end up in situations where we’d reached the maximum PV count (32 or 128) for a VG and have to create a new VG to work around the issue.   I use scalable VGs for all my new large AIX system builds.   The following command will create a scalable VG (named svg ) on hdisk4. You’ll notice that MAX PVs is set to 1024 and MAX LVs is set to 256.... [More]

Tags:  gibson vg aix manager lvm pv chris chvg hdisk max physical scalable lv groups mkvg group logical volume

I was working with a customer recently on a Power Blade that was running the Integrated Virtualisation Manager (IVM). They’d installed a VIO partition onto the Blade and had hoped to install a couple of AIX LPARs on the system. However they didn’t get very far.   As soon as they attempted to NIM install the LPARs, they would get stuck at trying to ping the NIM master from the client. Basically, the Shared Ethernet Adapter (SEA) was not working properly and none of the LPARs could communicate with the external network. So they asked for... [More]

Tags:  ivm chhwres vlan lshwres tag aix vios sea

Here’s a question I received recently, that relates to virtual SCSI hdisk path priority.   Hi, Chris, I use MPIO for our virtualization environment. I'd like to check which path is currently used. How can I get the result? For example:   [nim:/]# lspath Enabled hdisk0 vscsi0 Enabled hdisk0 vscsi1 Enabled hdisk2 vscsi2 Enabled hdisk1 vscsi1 Enabled hdisk1 vscsi0 Enabled hdisk3 vscsi2 Enabled hdisk2 vscsi3 Enabled hdisk3 vscsi3   How can I determine vscsi0 or vscsi1 is currently carrying data through VIOS and VIOC. Thanks a lot!   By default... [More]

Tags:  priority aix hdisk gibson vios vscsi chris

There are two new HMC (V7.7.3.0) commands that can force a client Virtual Fibre Channel adapter to log into a SAN. This should make the life of the AIX and SAN administrator easier, as they will no longer need to install AIX in order for the new VFC adapters to log into the SAN. Although there was an unsupported method* for doing this already (see links below). Nor will the SAN admins need to “blind” zone the WWPNs.   There was some indication of this in the latest VIOS FP readme:  ... [More]

Tags:  virtual gibson aix chnportlogin lsnportlogin channel npiv chris adapter fibre

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

The lsdevinfo utility appears to an undocumented command. However it looks like it could come in handy occasionally. Here are some examples of using it on AIX 7.1:   # oslevel -s 7100-00-01-1037   # lslpp -w /usr/sbin/lsdevinfo   File                                         Fileset                Type   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------   /usr/sbin/lsdevinfo                          bos.rte.methods        File   # lsdevinfo -h   Usage: lsdevinfo [-q Criteria] [-F Format] [-R] [-c] [-h]  ... [More]

Tags:  chris aix gibson lsdevinfo

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:  power cod gibson mod demand activation aix pod capacity chris code on powervm vet

Did you know that you can connect to and query the new solidDB database used by Cluster Aware AIX (CAA)?   You can connect to the solidDB instance and issue SQL queries against the database. In the following example, I issued two queries: one to list the tables in the database and another to query information relating to the nodes in the cluster. The formatting in the second query is a mess, but you get the idea.   root@node1:/> /opt/cluster/solidDB/bin/solsql -x pwdfile:/etc/cluster/dbpass 'tcp localhost 2188' caa IBM solidDB SQL... [More]

Tags:  soliddb aware solsql caa gibson chris /opt/cluster/soliddb/bin/... cluster aix

While attending the IBM Power Systems Symposium this week, I learnt that starting with AIX 7.1 (and AIX 6.1 TL6) JFS2 logging is disabled during a mksysb restore. You may be familiar with disabling JFS2 logs, if not, take a look at this IBM technical note:   https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=isg3T1012643   I’ve been unable to find any official documentation from IBM that mentions this new enhancement to the mksysb restore process. However, when I checked my own AIX 7.1 system I found the following statement/code in the... [More]

Tags:  mksysb log=null disabled logging jfs2 chris aix gibson

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 cluster 7.1 chris gibson creation aware aix

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 reserve_policy hscla27c chris

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 aix jfs2 convert gibson jfs

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

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

If you have the AIX iSCSI Software Initiator (iscsi0) configured on your system, you may find that nmon reports some “funny” information under the Disk Adapter (a) and Disk I/O (d) screens, such as:   ┌─topas_nmon──4=Top-by-RAM-use───Host=aix1 Refresh=2 secs───15:09.41──────────────────────────┐ │ Disk-Adapter-I/O ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│ │Name          %busy     read    write        xfers Disks Adapter-Type                                  │ │vscsi1          0.0     ... [More]

Tags:  i/o iscsi iscsi0 aix nmon adapter disk stats

Need to update the running attributes of a virtual SCSI adapter on an AIX system? Try these steps.   I want to change value for the   vscsi_err_recov attribute to fast_fail . I can’t do this if the adapter is busy i.e. has open/available paths to a disk device.   # lsattr -El vscsi2 vscsi_err_recov delayed_fail N/A                       True vscsi_path_to   0            Virtual SCSI Path Timeout True   # chdev -l vscsi2 -a vscsi_err_recov=fast_fail Method error (/usr/lib/methods/chggen):         0514-029 Cannot perform the requested... [More]

Tags:  vscsi cfgmgr gibson chdev aix chris rmpath lspath

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

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

  WARNING! Let me make this perfectly clear! The procedure that is shown below is NOT SUPPORTED by IBM. If you choose to follow these procedures, DO NOT contact IBM support for help. They will not be able to assist you. They will ask you to change the nimsh port numbers back to the defaults. They will ask you to change your SAP application to use a different port number. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!   Here’s a problem I’ve encountered more than once.   Someone installs SAP onto an AIX system and decides to use TCP port 3901... [More]

Tags:  aix nim chris sap 3901 gibson nimsh

A colleague was attempting to recreate a WPAR. The WPAR had previously been removed using the WPAR Manager Web GUI. This worked, or so he tells me!   Anyway, when he tried to create the WPAR again from the GUI, using the same WPAR name ( wpar20 ), it failed. The error claimed that /wpars/wpar20 already existed. But it didn’t!   Now, before I go any further, looking back at the issue now, it is pretty obvious what the problem might have been. However, the solution was not evident at first. This proves one thing for certain: some problems... [More]

Tags:  0960-288 /wpars/wpar20 mkwpar: gibson file system mkwpar chris wpar exists. already the aix

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 nim 3902 3901 aix

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

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:  wwpn vfc sed lssyscfg aix fibre gibson channel hmc chris virtual

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

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

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

Recently I had the pleasure of configuring a couple of POWER7 720s for a customer. Each 720 was to host roughly 12 LPARs each. There were two VIO servers and a NIM server per 720.   Everything went along nicely and according to plan. In a few days we had both systems built. My steps for building the systems were almost identical to those described by Rob McNelly in a recent post . All four VIO servers were running the latest VIOS code i.e. 2.2.0.10-FP-24 SP-01 . All the client LPARs were running AIX 6.1 TL6 SP3 . Each VIOS... [More]

Tags:  ds5020 aix vios

Last year I wrote an article on using nimadm to migrate to AIX 6.1 . The procedures outlined how to migrate a live system with nimadm and a spare disk. Another method that I have found to be extremely useful is the migration of mksysb images from one version of AIX to another using (you guessed it) nimadm . In the following example I migrated an AIX 6.1 mksysb image to AIX 7.1 and then used that image to install a new LPAR via NIM. The source LPAR was running AIX 6.1 TL6 SP3. I took a mksysb of this system to my NIM master. # oslevel -s... [More]

Tags:  gibson migration chris nimadm aix

Here’s a nice little matrix of current VIOS levels and the corresponding AIX level.     The following link also has some fantastic information relating to NIM installation and backup of a Virtual I/O Server (VIOS). https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=isg3T1011386 It has an official answer for one of the questions I’m asked the most: Q: Do I need to use an lpp_source to install the VIO server using NIM? A: No. All of the device drivers and software packages needed to install the VIO server are in the VIO server mksysb. I also... [More]

Tags:  nim vios aix

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