PowerHA SystemMirror Version 7.2.2 for AIX Enterprise Edition Notes

What's new

April 2019: For more information, see Hardware requirement.

New functions for PowerHA SystemMirror Version 7.2.2 for AIX

PowerHA® SystemMirror® Version 7.2.2 for AIX® has the following new functions and updates:

Failover Rehearsals: Failover rehearsal provides mirroring status for different storage devices in a multi-site cluster. For more information, see the Failover rehearsal topic.
Geographic Logical Volume Manager (GLVM): The glvm.rpv.util, glvm.rpv.client, and glvm.rpv.server filesets were moved from the PowerHA SystemMirror Version 7.2.2 for Enterprise Edition for AIX and added to the AIX Version 7.1.5 base media. For more information, see Installation prerequisites.

Software requirements

Before you install PowerHA SystemMirror Version 7.2.2 for AIX, you must install all available service packs for AIX and PowerHA SystemMirror from the IBM® Fix Central website.

PowerHA SystemMirror Version 7.2.2 for AIX is supported on the following version of the AIX operating system:

IBM AIX 7.1 with Technology Level 3 with Service Pack 9, or later
IBM AIX 7.1 with Technology Level 4 with Service Pack 4, or later
IBM AIX 7.1 with Technology Level 5, or later
IBM AIX Version 7.2 with Service Pack 4, or later
IBM AIX 7.2 with Technology Level 1 with Service Pack 2, or later
IBM AIX 7.2 with Technology Level 2, or later

Hardware requirement

PowerHA SystemMirror GUI requires IBM POWER6® or later technology-based servers.

Installation and migration

You cannot migrate from PowerHA SystemMirror Version 6.1 to PowerHA SystemMirror Version 7.2.2 for AIX. You must first migrate from PowerHA SystemMirror Version 6.1 to PowerHA SystemMirror Version 7.2. For more information about migrating, see the Migrating from PowerHA SystemMirror 6.1 to PowerHA SystemMirror 7.1, or later topic.

For more information about upgrading PowerHA SystemMirror Version 7.2.2 for AIX by using a snapshot, see the Upgrading PowerHA SystemMirror by using a snapshot topic.

For more information about upgrading an offline cluster, see the Upgrading an offline cluster for PowerHA SystemMirror topic.

For more information about rolling migration, see the Performing a rolling migration topic.

It is not required to install the PowerHA SystemMirror GUI server in a PowerHA SystemMirror cluster, but the agent must be installed in a cluster. While migrating PowerHA SystemMirror GUI server or agent, an attempt is made to maintain the original state of the service. For example, if the server was active when the migration operation began, an effort is made to ensure it is running again after the migration operation completes.

Additional information

PowerHA SystemMirror graphical user interface (GUI)

After you install the filesets that are available on the PowerHA SystemMirror Version 7.2.2 for AIX media, you must run the smuiinst.ksh command to complete the installation process. The smuiinst.ksh command automatically downloads and installs the remaining files that are required to complete the PowerHA SystemMirror GUI installation process. These downloaded files are not shipped in the filesets because the files are licensed under the General Public License (GPL).

The PowerHA SystemMirror GUI can be installed on either AIX or Linux operating system, and can manage clusters from both platforms concurrently, within the same instance of the PowerHA SystemMirror GUI server. For AIX only, a PowerHA SystemMirror GUI Version 7.2.2 server can also work with clusters that runs PowerHA SystemMirror 7.1.3 SP 7, PowerHA SystemMirror 7.2.0 SP 3, or PowerHA SystemMirror 7.2.1. For PowerHA SystemMirror 7.1.3 and PowerHA SystemMirror 7.2.0 clusters, only the monitoring and log viewing capabilities are supported. For PowerHA SystemMirror 7.2.1 clusters, full management capability is provided via service pack 2. Prior to that service pack, only the basic, non-management capabilities are supported.

PowerHA SystemMirror GUI have the following limitation in the PowerHA SystemMirror Version 7.2.2 for AIX:

If you cannot add or create a cluster, verify that SSH from the PowerHA SystemMirror GUI server system to the remote system you are trying to establish contact with is working, and does not require a response to prompt. For example:
```
# ssh 172.19.67.49 /bin/hostname
The authenticity of host '172.19.67.49 (172.19.67.49)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is 41:19:ea:f6:4f:46:91:29:f5:a0:fd:89:91:f7:28:97.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?
```
In the current version of the PowerHA SystemMirror GUI, you have to respond to the prompt to establish the SSH connection. You have to respond by entering yes to add the host to the ~/.ssh/known_hosts file of the PowerHA SystemMirror GUI server.
In PowerHA SystemMirror GUI, you cannot change the hostname of any managed cluster node. If you must change the hostname of a cluster node that the PowerHA SystemMirror GUI server is managing, you might need to remove the cluster from the PowerHA SystemMirror GUI server before changing the hostname, then add the cluster again after changing the hostname.
In PowerHA SystemMirror GUI, you cannot change the hostname of the GUI server host. If you must change the hostname of the GUI server, you must either remove all your clusters, then rediscover them after changing the hostname, or manually update the “/usr/es/sbin/cluster/ui/agent/configuration-agent.json” file on every cluster node and replace the old server IP address with the new address in the server URL. Restart the agent after this change is complete.
Creating or adding a cluster currently requires a root login. After the cluster is added in the PowerHA SystemMirror GUI, a root login is no longer required to manage it through the PowerHA SystemMirror GUI.
When creating a cluster by using the PowerHA SystemMirror GUI wizard, you cannot configure an alternate node name or a persistent IP for the first node that you added to the cluster. The first node is used to authenticate to the remote environment. It is included in the cluster with a default node label that is assigned to it.
The option to authenticate by using an SSH key is not available from the open terminal feature. For now, SSH authentication is supported only via password.

Documentation

To view the latest updates to the documentation, see the What's new in PowerHA SystemMirror topic.

To view the latest version of the release notes, see the PowerHA SystemMirror Version 7.2.2 for AIX release notes topic.

To view the documentation in PDF files, see the PowerHA SystemMirror Version 7.2.2 for AIX PDFs topic.

Man pages

The man pages for the PowerHA SystemMirror commands are provided in the cluster.man.en_US.es.data fileset. The fileset is installed in the /usr/share/man/cat1 directory. To view the man pages, from the command line, enter man command_name (where command_name is the name of the command).

You can use the clmgr command to perform most of the PowerHA SystemMirror operations. For more information about the operations that you can perform by using the clmgr command, see the clmgr command: Quick reference topic.