General Page
This document contains tips for successful installation of AIX 7.3 and is updated as new tips become available.
Last Update: 24 July 2025
Technology Levels and Service Packs mentioned in this document, when available, can be obtained from Fix Central at:
General Recommendations
Review the AIX 7.3 Release Notes for system requirements, limitations, and other information vital to successful installation.
- You must have root authority to perform the installation.
- Create a system backup before installation. For more information, see the mksysb command documentation.
When installing a system, it could be missing fixes critical to proper operation. So review the Fix Level Recommendation Tool (FLRT) to identify any recommended update, retrieve it from Fix Central or Service Update Management Assistant (SUMA), and apply it to the system promptly.
The following SUMA command downloads both the Service Pack (SP) images and the Technology Level (TL) images to the current directory.
For example, to download AIX 7300-03-01-2520:
suma -x -a RqType=SP -a RqName=7300-03-01-2520 -a FilterML=7300-00 -a DLTarget=$PWD
For systems already running the TL to install, you can download just the SP images to the current directory by specifying the TL in "FilterML", such as
FilterML=7300-03
Commit all applied updates before you upgrade your system to a new SP or TL. If you use workload partitions (WPARs), commit all applied updates in the WPARs before you update the global LPAR.
When you update to a new TL, it is good practice to first update the install tools using:
install_all_updates -d <software_source> -i
Then preview the remainder of the TL update using:
install_all_updates -d <software_source> -p
And apply the TL update using:
install_all_updates -d <software_source>
A system reboot is required after the installation completes successfully.
To verify that the TL or SP is installed, use the oslevel command.
For example, if you installed AIX 7300-03-01-2520:
oslevel -s
7300-03-01-2520
23 June 2025
Live Update with SAMP or VMRM on AIX 7300-03 (APAR IJ55071)
AIX 7.3 TL3 (7300-03) systems installed with Tivoli System Automation for Multiplatforms (SAMP) or IBM VM Recovery Manager (VMRM) may fail Live Update operations with the following error:
1430-129 FAILED: The following loaded kernel
extensions are not known to be safe for Live Update:
pvmwd_kex,nx,sctKernExt64_64
This occurs on all SAMP systems. And it occurs on VMRM systems where a domain definition is reported by the output of "/usr/bin/lsrpdomain", regardless of whether the domain is reported as offline or online.
To work around the issue, run the following commands as root.
/usr/sbin/lvupdateSafeKE -a "/usr/sbin/rsct/bin/pvmwatchdog/pvmwd_kex"
/usr/sbin/lvupdateSafeKE -a "/opt/rsct/bin/pvmwatchdog/pvmwd_kex"
This only needs to be done once per partition to bypass the IJ55071 failure on all subsequent Live Update operations.
13 January 2025
Physical Media Second DVD Error
Some orders of physical DVD media for AIX 7.3 7300-03-00-2446 were shipped with the second disc contents the same as the first disc. Affected physical media orders were filled during Dec 2024 and Jan 2025 and had kit number LK4T-1482-07 on the label.
As of 10 January 2025, future orders will be filled with correct physical media which can be identified by kit number LK4T-1482-08 on the label. Customers that received the LK4T-1842-07 kit will automatically be sent the new LK4T-1842-08 kit.
As of 10 January 2025, future orders will be filled with correct physical media which can be identified by kit number LK4T-1482-08 on the label. Customers that received the LK4T-1842-07 kit will automatically be sent the new LK4T-1842-08 kit.
12 December 2024
Simplified Service Pack Strategy
As a result of recent process improvements, AIX technology levels will no longer require a supplementary service pack immediately at release. Changes that would previously have been in the first service pack will now be included directly in the technology level instead. As a result, service pack numbering for technology levels will be lower by one versus older technology levels at a similar point in their lifecycle.
For example, as of 12 December 2024, AIX 7.3 Technology Level 7300-03 is available without a supplementary service pack. The full oslevel -s value for that release is 7300-03-00-2446. The next planned service will be on the usual cadence as advertised on the AIX Service Lifecycle page, which at the time of this writing is July 2025. That will be Service Pack 1 (7300-03-01-xxxx).
2 December 2022
NIM sendmail Error With Mixed lpp_source
If you install from a mixed NIM lpp_source, you see the following message on the client console and /var/adm/ras/devinst.log.
exec(): 0509-036 Cannot load program /usr/sbin/sendmail because of the following errors:
0509-022 Cannot load module /usr/lib/sasl/libntlm.so(shr.o).
0509-150 Dependent module libcrypto_compat.a(libcrypto.so) could not be loaded.
0509-022 Cannot load module libcrypto_compat.a(libcrypto.so).
0509-026 System error: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
A mixed NIM lpp_source is one that has images from AIX 7.3 Technology Level 0 installation media along with updates from later technology levels.
The message is generated by the installation of the 7.3.0.x version of bos.net.tcp.sendmail and may be safely ignored. The 7.3.0.x image depends on a deprecated library which is not available in the version of OpenSSL that ships with Technology Level 1 and later. And after the error is shown, the update for bos.net.tcp.sendmail from Technology Level 1 will be applied. This will restart the sendmail subsystem, which can be verified using the lssrc command.
# lssrc -s sendmail
Subsystem Group PID Status
sendmail mail 6554068 active
1 November 2022
SUMA workaround for November security change
On 11 November 2022, the service that SUMA relies on to retrieve fixes will undergo a security change causing SUMA commands to fail unless default settings are changed by running the following command:
# suma -c -a DOWNLOAD_PROTOCOL=https
This one-time change to the default SUMA communication protocol will not be necessary on future levels of AIX, namely:
AIX 7.3 TL1 SP1 (7300-01-01-2246) - estimated to be available 2 December 2022
AIX 7.2 TL5 SP5 (7200-05-05-2246) - estimated to be available 2 December 2022
AIX 7.1 TL5 SP11 (7100-05-11-2246) - estimated to be available in March 2023
AIX 7.1 TL5 SP11 (7100-05-11-2246) - estimated to be available in March 2023
20 May 2022 - Updated 25 May 2022
Firewall Changes Might Be Needed For Fix Retrieval
IBM is planning to implement infrastructure improvements to electronic fix distribution in early June.
Public internet IP address and hostnames are changing for the IBM servers that support internet delivery of fixes and updates for customer system's software, hardware, and operating system.
This change pertains to all operating systems supported by IBM Electronic Fix Distribution (EFD) / IBM Fix Central system.
Customer action might be required to ensure uninterrupted fix delivery services.
See the full bulletin for details.
Service Update Management Assistant (SUMA) is not affected by this change.
10 December 2021
Secure Boot failure with ntpd
Secure Boot checks fail for 7300-00-01-2148 LPARs configured to run ntp4. Failed boots display this message:
Secure boot: Signature verification failed for /usr/sbin/xntpd
This issue can be worked around by deleting the erroneous entry from the Trusted Signature Database (TSD) by running:
trustchk -d /usr/sbin/ntp4/ntpd4
If you are already hitting this problem, then you need to reduce your Secure Boot policy to allow boot. Then, delete the TSD entry, set the Secure Boot policy back to a level of 2 or less, and boot one more time.
Limitations with Java8.jre 8.0.0.635
Java 8 32-bit SR6FP35 (VRMF 8.0.0.635) might not load properly on AIX 7.3.
When you migrate from AIX 7.2 to AIX 7.3, if the logical partition has Java 8 32-bit SR6FP35 (VRMF 8.0.0.635) installed, you must upgrade the Java version to a later level that can be downloaded from the Java SDK on AIX page.
If a newer version is not available, Java 8 32-bit SR6FP30 (VRMF 8.0.0.630) images are provided on the AIX 7.3 Expansion Pack. You can force-install these Java images to revert to an earlier version that does not have the loading issues.
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Document Information
Modified date:
24 July 2025
UID
ibm16513320