Restoring access to an unlinked or deleted system library

When the existing libc.a library is not available, most operating system commands are not recognized.

The most likely causes for this type of problem are the following:

The link in /usr/lib no longer exists.
The file in /usr/ccs/lib has been deleted.

The following procedure describes how to restore access to the libc.a library. This procedure requires system downtime. If possible, schedule your downtime when it least impacts your workload to protect yourself from a possible loss of data or functionality.

The information in this how-to scenario was tested using specific versions of AIX. The results you obtain might vary significantly depending on your version and level of AIX.