Category: AIXchange archives

Edit: I did get that USB monitor. And I added a few more to my desktop for good measure. Originally posted June 21, 2016 on AIXchange Over the years I’ve discovered that you can never have too many monitors connected to your system. I’m reminded of this whenever I go on the road with a … Continue reading “Monitor-ing the Situation”

Edit: How often do you use these packages? Some links no longer work. Originally posted June 14, 2016 on AIXchange Are you familiar with the AIX Expansion Pack? “The AIX Expansion Pack is a collection of extra software that extends the base operating system capabilities. The AIX Web Download Pack is a collection of additional applications … Continue reading “The AIX Expansion Pack”

Edit: I want my enterprise class server. Originally posted June 7, 2016 on AIXchange You likely know that we can run multiple operating systems on Power servers. With powerful POWER8 servers, we can consolidate workloads such as AIX, IBM i, and Linux and run them simultaneously on the same server — assuming it’s not one … Continue reading “Don’t Forget About Server Consolidation”

Edit: I still love getting scripts from readers Originally posted May 31, 2016 on AIXchange In January I posted some scripts I’d received from Simon Taylor. He’s since provided me with more: “Hi Rob,Annual upgrades are happening again. We have the common problems with getting downtime, etc., and I wasn’t over keen on the published methods of … Continue reading “Upgrading SDDPCM Drivers”

Edit: I am still more active than I once was, and I have kept the weight off. Originally posted May 24, 2016 on AIXchange This blog typically covers AIX and other technical topics. However, every now and again I write about something else that interests me. This week’s topic, honestly, is sensitive. You’re overweight. Or, … Continue reading “Finding the Motivation to Change”

Edit: These charts project far into the future. Originally posted May 17, 2016 on AIXchange When is my version of AIX or PowerHA going out of support? These types of questions come up all the time. The good news is there are multiple ways to find quick answers to them. IBM has a support lifecycle webpage that … Continue reading “Finding Lifecycle and Other Product Info”

Edit: Still the only way to go. Many of these links no longer work. Originally posted May 10, 2016 on AIXchange If you have IBM maintenance and support contracts on your IBM hardware and software, it’s a straight-forward arrangement. When something breaks, you can open a PMR and get help. But did you know that … Continue reading “Enhanced Support Options”

Edit: This was terrifying. Glad I avoided a watch list. Originally posted May 3, 2016 on AIXchange If you travel for your job as I do, you probably lug lots of gear. Chargers, cords and adapters are just some of the necessities that keep your gadgets in working order while you’re on the go. If … Continue reading “What’s in Your Bag?”

Edit: Check your firmware! Originally posted April 26, 2016 on AIXchange Here’s something of interest to those who use live partition mobility (LPM): IBM has created a matrix that shows firmware compatibility for conducting LPM operations between systems: “Ensure that the firmware levels on the source and destination servers are compatible before upgrading. In [Table 1], … Continue reading “LPM and Firmware Compatibility”

Edit: I still want root. Originally posted April 19, 2016 on AIXchange For as long as there’s been an HMC, there have been frustrated administrators wishing they had root access to it. The argument for root does contain a certain logic. The HMC runs Linux under the covers, so shouldn’t we, as UNIX admins, have … Continue reading “Why Don’t We Have Root on the HMC?”

Edit: Is POWER making inroads? Originally posted April 12, 2016 on AIXchange Last week I was in Austin for a Linux on Power workshop, when, as the kids say, my Twitter timeline blew up with news from the OpenPOWER Summit in San Jose. Appropriately enough, as I started to write this, I saw tweets from Nigel Griffiths and David Spurway that … Continue reading “Coverage of IBM’s OpenPOWER Summit Announcements”

Edit: Hopefully now you are migrating to POWER9 Originally posted April 5, 2016 on AIXchange You just found out you’re getting new hardware. But hold the celebration — how do you get your existing LPARs to run on it? This document covers migration paths for AIX systems to POWER8 systems. It’s “intended as a quick-reference … Continue reading “Migrating to POWER8 Systems”

Edit: There are still plenty of people on older hardware and software. Originally posted March 29, 2016 on AIXchange Nobody likes to admit it, but many customers are still running AIX 5.3 on older hardware. There are many reasons for this. Maybe you have a few LPARs running an older OS. Maybe you’re reliant on … Continue reading “Another Lifeline for Those on AIX 5.3 Extended Support”

Edit: I still refer to this all of the time. Originally posted March 22, 2016 on AIXchange If you just bought an 8408-E8E — otherwise known as the E850 — you may be wondering about its minimum supported AIX versions. Turns out there’s an easy way to find this information: Just go to the System to … Continue reading “Finding Minimum AIX Hardware Support Levels”

Edit: Do you run the app? Originally posted March 15, 2016 on AIXchange It seems like there’s an app for everything related to your Power hardware these days. There’s myHMC Mobile (which I covered here), along with the IBM Redbooks Mobile App. And now there’s the IBM Technical Support Mobile App (available for Android and iPhone): “The IBM Technical Support … Continue reading “POWER Systems? There’s an app for that.”

Edit: I still use them both. Originally posted March 8, 2016 on AIXchange I’ve mentioned FLRT previously (here, here and here). Hopefully you’ve taken advantage of the tool. On countless occasions it’s helped me determine the latest versions of OSs, firmware and applications, along with end of life, etc. From IBM: “The Fix Level Recommendation Tool (FLRT) provides cross-product … Continue reading “The Fix (Level) is In: Using FLRT and FLRT LITE”

Edit: Do you ever check these? Originally posted March 1, 2016 on AIXchange The website db-engines.com rates “database management systems according to their popularity.” The list has been around for a few years, and as this InfoWorld article notes, “It isn’t forensically precise, nor is it meant to be; it’s intended to give a sense of trends over time.” … Continue reading “How Does Your Database Rate?”

Edit: This is still a valuable tidbit. Originally posted February 23, 2016 on AIXchange A while back a customer got word from Oracle that they would be charged for every core on a system that could be used for Live Partition Mobility, even cores that weren’t used by their Oracle database. “IBM Power VM Live Partition … Continue reading “Running LPM on Selected Partitions”

Edit: I am still proud to be a Champion. Originally posted February 16, 2016 on AIXchange Last fall I wrote about the relaunch of the IBM Champions program. Here’s how I described it back in 2011: “Apple fanboy” is a moniker that’s sometimes given to those who love Apple products. Along those lines, I guess I’m a … Continue reading “Proud to be a (Returning) Champion”

Edit: Avoid a resume generating event. Originally posted February 9, 2016 on AIXchange Recently I was telling a customer about the differences between booting into single-user mode and booting into maintenance mode. If you’re not familiar with these procedures, I recommend either using an existing LPAR or creating a new LPAR and trying them both. … Continue reading “Single-User Mode vs. Maintenance Mode”

Edit: Yet another reason to look at Enterprise class hardware. Originally posted February 2, 2016 on AIXchange This article made the rounds on Twitter awhile ago. It’s worth your time if you haven’t read it: Not long after the first personal computers started entering people’s homes, Intel fell victim to a nasty kind of memory error. … Continue reading “New Solutions to the Age-Old Problem of Memory Errors”

Edit: Still the best place to run it. Originally posted January 26, 2016 on AIXchange I assume you’ve heard by now that SAP HANA is available on IBM Power Systems. With this release, SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems is supported for customers running SAP Business Warehouse on IBM Power Systems. This solution is available on … Continue reading “Thoughts on SAP HANA’s Availability on Power Systems”

Edit: Does anyone use this? Originally posted January 19, 2016 on AIXchange After trying out the HMC virtual appliance (vHMC), I wanted to examine the myHMC mobile application. The app, which came out last summer, is designed to allow you to manage HMC devices from your phone. For more, watch this video, and read  Appendix A from this IBM Redbook. … Continue reading “Another HMC Goody: myHMC Mobile”

Edit: Do you use this in your environment? Originally posted January 12, 2016 on AIXchange Have you ever wished you could run HMC code on your laptop? Sure, there are unsupported work-arounds, but the new HMC virtual appliance (vHMC) makes this task much simpler to accomplish, and it’s supported by IBM. Read all about it … Continue reading “Testing Out the New vHMC”

Edit: Still good stuff. Originally posted January 5, 2016 on AIXchange For years I’ve been asking you to send me scripts. Sharing your scripting abilities benefits us all. We can use them as is, or as a starting point to create scripts that could help others. Sometime I find scripts — take these, for instance (here, here and here). Regardless … Continue reading “Simon Scripts”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted December 22, 2015 on AIXchange I’ve once again been working with teams that are updating various certification tests. I enjoy the interaction with tech pros from around the world as we devise test questions and answers. As I wrote in my previous post on this topic: The first … Continue reading “The Important Work of Certification Test Writing”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted December 15, 2015 on AIXchange A customer recently contacted IBM Support, wondering how much memory the hypervisor could be expected to consume in their real world environment. Even given how inexpensive memory has become and how convenient it is to add and modify partitions as needed, customers … Continue reading “Calculating Hypervisor Memory Overhead”

Edit: Still an important concept to understand. Originally posted December 8, 2015 on AIXchange As often as I see it, it still surprises me when I encounter a company that depends on some application, but chooses to run it on unsupported hardware without maintenance agreements and/or vendor support. If anything goes sideways, who knows how … Continue reading “The Costs of Technical Debt”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted December 1, 2015 on AIXchange If you’re tasked with migrating, duplicating or cloning your system from old to new hardware, how do you go about it? If the system isn’t too old, and your source systems are virtualized, you may be able to perform a live partition … Continue reading “Moving an AIX System”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted November 24, 2015 on AIXchange IBM recently published — and just updated — a Redbook that covers IBM Spectrum Scale (formerly GPFS). This IBM Redbooks publication updates and complements the previous publication: Implementing the IBM General Parallel File System in a Cross Platform Environment, SG24-7844, with additional updates since … Continue reading “Getting Started with Spectrum Scale”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted November 17, 2015 on AIXchange IBM developerWorks recently posted this piece about replacing a boot disk in PowerVC. The developerWorks article mentions the replacepv command, using an example where this was run:     replacepv hdisk0 hdisk1 I haven’t messed around with replacepv, but once I read about its capabilities, … Continue reading “Replacing Disks with replacepv”

Edit: Still worth considering, and 96G is still pretty small. Originally posted November 10, 2015 on AIXchange This article examines the issues VMware and x86 customers face as they try to virtualize their environments: Server virtualization has brought cost savings in the form of a reduced footprint and higher physical server efficiency along with the reduction … Continue reading “A Different View of Virtualization”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted November 3, 2015 on AIXchange What kinds of tools do you use to document and check your systems? I’ve written about prtconf, a built-in tool, and hmcscanner, but many other solutions are available. Here are three software tools that readers have shared with me. I’m not endorsing any of … Continue reading “A List of System Scanning Tools”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Some updates at the bottom. Originally posted October 27, 2015 on AIXchange Awhile back, I was called in to assist an IBM i heritage customer that encountered difficulty installing a VIO server from their HMC. Fortunately, this support document had some helpful information: This document describes how to cleanup HMC installios after … Continue reading “HMC installios Cleanup”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted October 20, 2015 on AIXchange Awhile back, IBM’s Chris Gibson offered a PowerHA tip that you might have missed: You can use SEA poll_uplink method (requires VIOS 2.2.3.4). In this case SEA can pass up the link status, no “!REQD” style ping is required any more. Yes, you can … Continue reading “An Underutilized PowerHA Option”

Edit: Send me your scripts. Originally posted October 13, 2015 on AIXchange I was recently working with someone who had built some new LPARs. As part of the build out he decided his NIM server would make a good general purpose utility server. This NIM server would become a one-stop shop where he planned to … Continue reading “The Simplest Script”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted October 5, 2015 on AIXchange What version of AIX are you running? At conferences and events where presenters ask for attendees to put up their hands I am seeing fewer and fewer shops running AIX 5.3, AIX 5.2 or older versions of AIX. They are migrating to … Continue reading “IBM Announcements Including AIX 7.2 and New Linux Servers”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted September 29, 2015 on AIXchange I have a client that works with virtual optical devices, having built one for each LPAR on its system. The client wanted to know the easiest way to display these devices along with all of the virtual media (both the media already … Continue reading “Displaying Virtual Optical Device Info with lsvopt”

Edit: Now I am a Lifetime Champion. Some links no longer work. Originally posted September 22, 2015 on AIXchange Back in 2011 I wrote about the IBM Champion program and how happy I was to be one of those recognized. Since that time, the program went on a bit of a hiatus, and there hadn’t been any new … Continue reading “The IBM Champion Program is Back”

Edit: Still worth thinking about. Originally posted September 15, 2015 on AIXchange Are you sending in log files and snap files to IBM for problem analysis? I usually send my information via FTP, but lately I’ve tried other methods like https or the Java utility. For anyone who’s grown up with GUI, these may be … Continue reading “Sending Log Files to IBM”

Edit: More fun with zsnap. Originally posted September 8, 2015 on AIXchange Last week I wrote about the zsnap command and how it can be used to collect information and troubleshoot data for AIX, PowerHA or VIO server. Here’s how to use zsnap with PowerHA SystemMirror: The following procedures are for data collection, not for problem diagnosis. Gathering … Continue reading “A Troubleshooting Follow-up”

Edit: Do you use snap or zsnap more often? Originally posted September 1, 2015 on AIXchange If you work on AIX (which you surely do if you’re reading this) and you’ve worked with IBM Support, you’ve probably used the snap command. But are you familiar with the zsnap command? The zsnap command is a supplemental tool used … Continue reading “The First Step in Troubleshooting”

Edit: Still an interesting concept. Originally posted August 25, 2015 on AIXchange On Twitter, Chris Gibson linked to this interesting post from Andrey Klyachin: A colleague asked me, if there is an interface in AIX like inotify in Linux. He has some problem on one of his AIX boxes and wanted to monitor new files in a directory. … Continue reading “Helpful Links About Event Monitoring”

Edit: I still use these all the time Originally posted August 18, 2015 on AIXchange Say your site is getting new hardware. One thing you’d want to know is the software versions you should be running on your shiny new boxes. That’s what makes IBM’s Software System Maps web page worth bookmarking. Here you’ll find software maps … Continue reading “Check Out IBM Software System Maps”

Edit: Sometimes I miss the old interface. Originally posted August 11, 2015 on AIXchange I was recently playing around with the enhanced HMC GUI, using the new interface to look at an old test machine. The test box had crash and burn LPARs that had been created over time. In some cases, I’d spin up a … Continue reading “Creating Adapters with the HMC Enhanced GUI”

Edit: Do you know about this now? Originally posted August 4, 2015 on AIXchange Do you have a hung process on your AIX machine? Do you need more information about a running process? These are just two instances where the pdump script could help you: The pdump script extracts information from the running process by using the … Continue reading “The pdump Script”

Edit: Still good stuff. Originally posted July 28, 2015 on AIXchange Anthony English recently tweeted about world wide port names (WWPNs), linking to this series of slides last updated by Anthony Vandewerdt in 2013. When working with SAN zoning storage devices and servers, it’s important to identify every piece of hardware. For those who work with IBM storage devices, … Continue reading “Identifying SAN Devices”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted July 21, 2015 on AIXchange What new features and capabilities would you like to see added to AIX? How can you share your ideas with IBM? In the past, customers could submit a design change request (DCR). This is now done with a request for enhancement (RFE). Read more … Continue reading “Share Your Product Ideas with IBM”

Edit: Link still works. Originally posted July 14, 2015 on AIXchange This white paper, published in April, examines HMC 830 connectivity security: This document describes data that is exchanged between the Hardware Management Console (HMC) and the IBM Service Delivery Center (SDC). In addition it also covers the methods and protocols for this exchange. This includes … Continue reading “HMC Connectivity Security”

Edit: Still good stuff. Originally posted July 7, 2015 on AIXchange Are you looking for more information about your SAN? Do you want to learn about the LUNs that have been presented to your host? Maybe you want to be able to compare what your machine sees now as opposed to what it was seeing … Continue reading “A Tool for SAN Troubleshooting”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted June 30, 2015 on AIXchange I needed a bigger vehicle. Given my work with Boy Scouts, I spend considerable time on the road, hauling boys and their camping gear. I wanted something big enough to comfortably contain eight or nine people and capably transport a trailer of supplies. … Continue reading “A Message Worth Repeating”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted June 23, 2015 on AIXchange When you upgrade your HMC to Version 8.2, there’s a new “tech preview” option that’s intended to give you a feel for the direction that the HMC interface is heading. One of the big complaints heard from those new to POWER hardware … Continue reading “A Look at HMC 8.2 (and Beyond)”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted June 16, 2015 on AIXchange Lately I’ve been reading about Docker, and it seems to keep coming up everywhere I look. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s an “open platform for developers and sysadmins to build, ship, and run distributed applications.” Here’s more from Docker’s website: Why … Continue reading “A Docker Primer”

Edit: Information may still be useful, although I doubt anyone is running this version of HMC code anymore. Originally posted June 9, 2015 on AIXchange Recently after upgrading to 8.8.2 SP1, I found my HMC was unable to communicate via RMC to my client LPARs. Though this document helped, when I ran the lspartition -dlpar command, I … Continue reading “Fixing RMC Connections to the HMC with 8.8.2 SP1”

Edit: Link no longer works. Originally posted June 2, 2015 on AIXchange In environments with machines containing many volume groups and filesystems, we want easy ways of manipulating that information. There’s always a need to know to know which filesystem is in which volume group. If you want to grow the size of a filesystem, you … Continue reading “Getting Volume Group Info”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted May 26, 2015 on AIXchange If you’re new to IBM Power Systems, you’re new to upgrading the HMC (see here and here). Furthermore, you’re new to system firmware updates. I’ve previously discussed firmware, and IBM Systems Magazine has other good articles about it (here and here). There’s also this step-by-step guide to updating your system … Continue reading “Updating System Firmware”

Edit: Still good stuff. Originally posted May 19, 2015 on AIXchange Recently a customer rebooted some systems that hadn’t been restarted in more than a year. All of the LPARs and the VIO servers were powered off so maintenance could be performed. The customer was able to use live partition mobility to relocate the important … Continue reading “When Rebooting, Don’t Forget About the System Profile”

Edit: As of the time of the writing the links still worked. Originally posted May 11, 2015 on AIXchange On April 28, IBM announced new capabilities for existing POWER8 servers. Today, it’s announcing a new POWER8 server model. There is a new four-socket 4U server, the Power E850 server, machine type/model 8408-E8E, which will become generally available … Continue reading “E850 Among the New POWER8 Servers Announced by IBM”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted May 5, 2015 on AIXchange As I’ve mentioned, I follow several AIX and IBM Power Systems pros on Twitter. Benoit Creau (@chmod666 on Twitter) is someone you should follow as well. He’s been working on a new tool called lssea that “lists information and details about PowerVM shared … Continue reading “Handy Tool Provides Adapter Info”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted April 28, 2015 on AIXchange After upgrading an AIX system, a customer found that they needed to back out of the change. They ended up restoring rootvg from a mksysb.  Although that’s one way to do it, I don’t recommend it. Of course you should have an … Continue reading “Why You Should Keep a Local Alt Disk Copy”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted April 21, 2015 on AIXchange In December I wrote about a document that covers HMC simplification. Actually, the doc isn’t just about that. It’s also about how IBM is trying to make managing PowerVM easier for customers. From the document:  “Managing the IBM PowerVM infrastructure involves configuring its different … Continue reading “Simplifying PowerVM Management”

Edit: Are you monitoring errors? Originally posted April 14, 2015 on AIXchange Your shop has no budget for monitoring software, but you still want to be notified when LPAR errors appear in the AIX error log. You have a few options.  You could write scripts and periodically run them out of cron. You could set … Continue reading “Setting Up LPAR Error Notification”

Edit: Did you know you could do this? Originally posted April 7, 2015 on AIXchange It’s easy to overlook the simple things. For instance, did you know that vi can be invoked from within the more command?  From “man more”:             The more command uses the following subcommands:              h            Displays a help screen that … Continue reading “The more Command and vi”

Edit: We see these stories these days when ransomware takes out critical systems. Originally posted March 31, 2015 on AIXchange I enjoy reading IT-related horror stories, especially those that hit close to home. For me, the best thing about these stories is figuring out what went wrong and then incorporating those lessons into my own … Continue reading “More Terrifying Tales of IT”

Edit: Some links no longer work. Originally posted March 24, 2015 on AIXchange Recently I listened to a discussion of the differences in input/output operations per second (IOPS) in various workload scenarios. People talked about heavy reads. They talked about heavy writes. They debated whether it was better to use RAID5, RAID6 or RAID10. Things … Continue reading “Maxmizing IOPS”

Edit: With flash USB drives this is even easier now. Originally posted March 17, 2015 on AIXchange Perhaps I wasn’t clear when I explained why NIM is my VIO server installation option of choice. In any event, this reader’s response got me thinking further about the topic: “I prefer (to) install from the virtual media repository. … Continue reading “Readers Discuss VIOS Installs”

Edit: These days it sounds like people are trying to outlaw them. Some links no longer work. Originally posted March 10, 2015 on AIXchange During a recent lunch with customers, the topic of smoking came up. Some were talking about smoking hookahs, some were talking about cigars, and some were talking about cigarettes. One of … Continue reading “It’s Time to Snuff Out Commodity Servers”

Edit: I still use my beefy laptop most of the time. Originally posted March 3, 2015 on AIXchange A reader had an interesting response to my recent post about the end(?) of desktop and laptop computers. With his permission, I’ll share some of our email exchange: Hi Rob — Greetings from another dinosaur. For some reasons … Continue reading “The Laptop’s Future, Revisited”

Edit: I still have a landline and a Model M. Originally posted February 24, 2015 on AIXchange I like watching many of the old movies aired on TCM (aka, The Movie Channel). In addition to enjoying the stories being told, I just love seeing the clothing and the buildings and the landscapes of bygone eras. While … Continue reading “A Fun Look Back at Technology”

Edit: Still good information. Originally posted February 17, 2015 on AIXchange In this August 2014 post I discussed how to connect your HMC to IBM Support. That post includes a link to a .pdf document that outlines the different connectivity options. However, this IBM technote seems easier to work with: “The following is a list of ports used … Continue reading “Connecting Your HMC to IBM Support, Revisited”

Edit: There are easier ways to get access to hardware. Originally posted February 10, 2015 on AIXchange If you’re looking to develop software for POWER8 systems but don’t have access to POWER8 hardware, there are options like the virtual loaner program or some kind of test system. You should also be aware of the IBM POWER8 Functional … Continue reading “Another POWER8 Development Option”

Edit: Still worth putting thought into. Originally posted February 3, 2015 on AIXchange About a month ago this discussion hit the AIX mailing list. I’m posting the thread here to get your feedback. First, the original question: “Date:  Tue, 6 Jan 2015 15:41:01 -0600From:  Russell AdamsSubject: Hostname as short name or FQDN? Here’s a great question for the … Continue reading “How Do You Handle Host Names?”

Edit: Still worth considering. Originally posted January 27, 2015 on AIXchange Although many of us like to assert that AIX running on Power hardware is a secure operating system, we must be aware of methods that might be used to try to compromise the systems we maintain. Just because the AIX user base is smaller … Continue reading “Security Behind the Firewall”

Edit: Still good to remember how to disconnect. And still worth asking, how many little annoyances do you just choose to live with? Originally posted January 20, 2015 on AIXchange Recently a friend asked me about vtmenu: “You know when you run vtmenu and you exit using ~. and it disconnects your ssh session to … Continue reading “vtmenu and Life’s Little Annoyances”

Edit: This is still good stuff. Originally posted January 13, 2015 on AIXchange In May 2013 I wrote about installing the VIO server using the HMC GUI. This more recent article covers the same topic. At the end of Bart’s post he mentions using the virtual media repository, something I covered here. While I have used the HMC … Continue reading “Why I Choose NIM to Install VIOS”