AIX Commands, Tools, Scripts and Explanations

June 5, 2012, in category AIX Commands comments No comments

It is important to maintain proper levels of your VIO (Virtual I/O) servers and HMC (Hardware Management Console).  IBM is constantly providing fixes and updates, and it is integral that you keep a keen eye on these levels when implementing new technology or you are experiencing issues with new applications or practices.

VIO:

ioslevel –> VIO version

oem_platform_level –> AIX version of VIO server

HMC:

lshmc -V –> list the version of your HMC

May 25, 2012, in category Scripts, Software comments 3 comments

After a grueling battle trying to compile GIT from source on an AIX (6.1) machine, I thought I would try to save you some trouble and outline clearly what I had to do.  Please note I initially followed this guide, which gave me a good base, but I had to throw in a few extra tweaks.

First off, you will need to get the following dependencies.  I was able to get most of them from the IBM Linux Toolbox here, and the rest I got from the great people at Perzl.org

Dependencies:

bison-1.875-3.aix5.1.ppc.rpm
coreutils-5.2.1-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm
expect-5.45-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm
flex-2.5.4a-6.aix4.3.ppc.rpm
gcc-4.2.0-3.aix6.1.ppc.rpm
gcc-cplusplus-4.2.0-3.aix6.1.ppc.rpm
gdbm-1.8.3-5.aix5.2.ppc.rpm
gettext-0.10.40-8.aix5.2.ppc.rpm
git-git-5bc2dc2
git-git-v1.7.10.2-569-g5bc2dc2.zip
libXft-2.2.0-1.aix5.1.ppc...

January 29, 2012, in category Certification comments No comments

Judy Katz, the Communcations Manager over at Prometric released a document named “The Top 10 IT Certification Myths. Addressing the top 10 Myths About IT Certification: A Counterpoint Position to Misinterpretation” (read here).  In case you aren’t aware, Prometric handles the IBM certifications and many other certifications for big name IT leaders. Let’s take a quick look at what she talks about here.

Myths:

Certifications are Vendor-centric

• While this is true, the negative outlook on this truth is unwarranted.  Most technologies are developed by specific vendors, and certain vendors are the best to oversee certification over the technology...

January 24, 2012, in category Certification comments No comments

Many of you may be curious on the formatting of the certifications.  I know I was.  The certification tests are offered throughout the world, many of them at small business colleges.  Based on my experience, this is what you can expect:

• Multiple choice
• Video recording
• Computer based
• Timed
• Given a scrap of paper for notes
• Cannot bring cell phone’s into room

If you go to the IBM website you will see that most tests are broken down into categories.  These breakdowns are very accurate as you also get a print out at the end of how you did in each category. If you aren’t strong in a subject, LEARN IT.  It won’t be like in highschool where the teacher says something might be on the exam and it isn’t.  Each category listed is in fact on the exam, with weighting how it is outlined.

January 17, 2012, in category Problem Determination comments One comment

Often times when a file system fills up you will see one of two things:

1. Because you have a well monitored system, you will get an email alert that a threshold has been reached and the file system is filling up
2. Users are screaming because their applications are breaking and files aren’t being saved…

Regardless of which is happening to you, first thing to do is figure out WHY the file systems are filling up.

Nine times out of ten you’ll see that users are putting files where they shouldn’t.  Storing files or logs in the /home directory, saving stuff to /tmp and not deleting it, these are things you’ll see everyday.  Here’s how to figure out what’s going on.

$ df -m -> display the free space, in megabytes, on all file systems

$ who -> always good to see who is on the lpar (if the problem ...

January 17, 2012, in category Problem Determination comments No comments

In AIX there are a number of ways to check up on who has touched your server.  If something has been done and you aren’t sure who has been poking around, this will help you figure out.

**NOTE: this is made much simpler by disabling root SSH capabilities.  If you have not done this, please not that it is recommended to disallow SSH directly for root user as this will mask who has been logging into the system (as well as cause other security holes)

$ who -> This will tell you who is currently logged into the system, from where and when they logged on

$ last -> This will give you a list of previous logins, the source and time, both in and out

$ who /etc/security/failedlogin -> List all of the failed logins with the same details as above

$ history -1000 -> If you use shared user ids, or y...

January 17, 2012, in category Certification comments One comment

System Availability (10%)

1. Identify resources used by Cluster Aware AIX
2. Configure dump devices and analyze output
3. Determine elements necessary to reduce single points of failure
4. Understand geographical logical volume manager (GLVM)
5. Maintain hardware (CEC/Blade Hardware), deferred or concurrent firmware, AMM firmware (for Power Blades), whether an adapter replacement or new installation.

Storage Management (21%)

1. Create and manage filesystems
2. Create and manage logical volumes
3. Create and manage volume groups
4. Manage physical and virtual devices
5. Manage storage devices (traditional disk, Solid State Drives, and tape) including redundancy

System and Network Security (4%)

1. Configure Role Based Access Control
2. Configure and Manage remote access

Partition Management (11%)

1. Configure and manage Lo...

January 17, 2012, in category General Maintenance comments No comments

Workload Partitions are a form of compacting down your environment into something more manageable and faster/easier to deploy or destroy.  The idea of a WPAR is that you can run the work of multiple LPARs within a single LPAR.  By creating an LPAR with WPAR capabilities, you can fill it with images running multiple instances of AIX workloads.

By consolidating your LPAR environment, you can create more easily manageable servers for environments with multiple development, sandbox and testing deployments.  Often times with the increase in virtualization, we treat LPARs as though they are disposable machines (which technically they are).  By creating a WPAR, you increase the ease of set up, tie up less physical resources, and keep your environment breadth steady...

January 16, 2012, in category AIX Commands comments No comments

vi /etc/inittab = BAD IDEA

We all know that vi (or any other text editor) can easily edit a text file such as the inittab.  We also know that nobody is perfect, and that mistakes do happen (escape characters, wrong formatting etc.)  The problem is, when editing the inittab, if you make an error in the wrong place, you can render the system unbootable.  This is because the inittab is an important part of the boot sequence for an lpar, and once the boot sequence get mucked up, bad things start to happen.

This guide will go over the correct ways to edit the inittab without the risk of breaking the lpar altogether. (The only way to recover from some inittab errors are to network boot and fix from there…)

lsitab -a -> list contents of the inittab

lsitab identifier -> find specified identi...

January 12, 2012, in category AIX Commands, Scripts comments No comments

Well, not really.  But I assume I’ll get lots of attention with that name alone.  When I thought about writing this it was for one very specific thing only.

Often times in a script I’ll want to strip output based on a delimiter or columns.  I found myself constantly fighting with IFS and trying to make sense of delimiters that don’t follow a common pattern.  My two ways of extracting columns from a file/variable are as follows:

echo $variable | cut -f 2 -d “:” –> (-f to select column, -d to select delimiter)

echo $variable | awk ‘{ print $2 }’

Believe it or not, for someone that started off with no formal shell training or anything, this took me awhile to figure out.  Cut has its ups and downs but I will say this, awk is without a doubt worth learning.  In its entirety.

Anyways, th...