More often than not, I find myself having to compare two Hardware Management Console (HMC) logical partition (LPAR) profile configurations. Sometimes this is to ensure that a profile in a disaster ...
AIX paging space
An AIX installation will come with a default configured paging space logical volume (hd6). You can increase the size of the logical volume to suit your needs, but at some stage, you may have a requ...
Deploying AIX eFixes using NIM at scale with Puppet
Most will be familiar with using the emgr command to install emergency fixes (eFixes) on AIX. You can additionally use a Network Installation Management (NIM) server in either a push or pull operat...
Display client LPAR WWPNs from the HMC
There are several ways to find the WWPNs for a virtual fibre channel adapter. You can log into the individual LPAR’s, get them from the Hardware Management Console (HMC), or from another asset disc...
AIX mksysb creation date
Something that I do quite frequently is verify that I have a valid mksysb image for the AIX LPAR that I’m about to make changes on (for example, before applying a service pack). You can do this fro...
Migrating from SDDPCM to AIXPCM (the easy way)
For a while now, IBM have diverted their efforts in storage multipathing from SDDPCM to the default AIX PCM. This brings a few advantages, but specifically for me, it means the driver is now update...
HMC Elastic CoD detail function
IBM have created a self-service portal for its customers to allow them to request their own Elastic Capacity on Demand codes for their registered systems. In my time using the new website, the code...
PowerHA SystemMirror and NIM mksysb failures
I built a basic two-node PowerHA SystemMirror (HACMP) cluster for my team a little while ago to use as a test environment for patch updates. While it wasn’t a true reflection of how the production ...
Patching CVE-2014-6271 and CVE-2014-7169 on AIX via NIM (bash bug aka shellshock)
Below I detail how I patched over 800 AIX LPAR’s that were exposed by CVE-2014-6271 and CVE-2014-7169, also known as shellshock, using the NIM server. From everything that I’ve been reading on IBM...
AIX boot hangs with HMC 2700 LED code
We recently upgraded the firmare on our Power frame, which required shutting down some of our AIX LPAR’s. The firmware upgrade went well, as did starting up all the AIX LPAR’s, except for one. This...