Using NIM resources

All operations on clients in the NIM environment require one or more resources.

NIM resource objects represent files and directories that are used to support some type of NIM operation. Because NIM resources are ordinary file system objects in the AIX® operating system, most of them are provided to clients with standard Network File System (NFS) software. This means that the resources must reside locally on the servers providing these resources, on a JFS or JFS2 file system, because NFS can only export file system objects that are stored on local media in the machines from which they are exported. A large number of resources (files and directories) are needed to support NIM software installation and maintenance operations.

To obtain detailed information about any resource, enter the following from the NIM master:

lsnim -Pa ResourceType

The SMIT interfaces are designed to hide much of the detail required for the command line interface. Therefore, these sections only document the resource task procedures for the command line. The following information applies to the other interfaces as well, but discussion of those interfaces is deferred to the online contextual help available for those applications.