Beginners AIX commands For Solaris Admins

This post will give you give you a quick glance of some useful AIX command that I usually keep handy for my own reference. I am not a regular AIX admin but at the same time I don’t want to be panic If I have to work on an AIX issue at any time during my job. Due to increased neutralization happening in the industry, i believe it is the time to all the Unix admin to be comfortable with as many flavors of unix as possible irrespective of previous experience involved.

 

 

Kernel

 

How would I know if I am running a 32-bit kernel or 64-bit kernel?

To display if the kernel is 32-bit enabled or 64-bit enabled, type:

bootinfo -K

 

How do I know if I am running a uniprocessor kernel or a multiprocessor kernel?

/unix is a symbolic link to the booted kernel. To find out what kernel mode is running, enter ls -l /unix and see what file /unix it links to. The following are the three possible outputs from the ls -l /unix command and their corresponding kernels:

/unix -> /usr/lib/boot/unix_up # 32 bit uniprocessor kernel

/unix -> /usr/lib/boot/unix_mp # 32 bit multiprocessor kernel

/unix -> /usr/lib/boot/unix_64 # 64 bit multiprocessor kernel

 

Note: AIX 5L Version 5.3 does not support a uniprocessor kernel.

How can I change from one kernel mode to another?

During the installation process, one of the kernels, appropriate for the AIX version and the hardware in operation, is enabled by default. Use the method from the previous question and assume that the 32-bit kernel is enabled. Also assume that you want to boot it up in the 64-bit kernel mode. This can be done by executing the following commands in sequence:

• ln -sf /usr/lib/boot/unix_64 /unix
• ln -sf /usr/lib/boot/unix_64 /usr/lib/boot/unix
• bosboot -ad /dev/hdiskxx
• shutdown -r

 

 The /dev/hdiskxx directory is where the boot logical volume /dev/hd5 is located. To find out what xx is in hdiskxx, run the following command:

• lslv -m hd5

 

 Note: In AIX V5.2, the 32-bit kernel is installed by default. In AIX V5.3, the 64-bit kernel is installed on 64-bit hardware and the 32-bit kernel is installed on 32-bit hardware by default.

Hardware

How do I know if my machine is capable of running AIX 5L Version 5.3?

AIX 5L Version 5.3 runs on all currently supported CHRP (Common Hardware Reference Platform)-based POWER™ hardware.

How do I know if my machine is CHRP-based?

Run the prtconf command. If it’s a CHRP machine, the string chrp appears on the Model Architecture line.

How do I know if my System p machine (hardware) is 32-bit or 64-bit?

To display if the hardware is 32-bit or 64-bit, type:

• bootinfo -y

 

How much real memory does my machine have?

To display real memory in kilobytes (KB), type one of the following:

• bootinfo -r
•  lsattr -El sys0 -a realmem

 

Can my machine run the 64-bit kernel?

64-bit hardware is required to run the 64-bit kernel.

 

What are the values of attributes for devices in my system?

To list the current values of the attributes for the tape device, rmt0, type:

• lsattr -l rmt0 -E

 

To list the default values of the attributes for the tape device, rmt0, type:

• lsattr -l rmt0 -D

 

To list the possible values of the login attribute for the TTY device, tty0, type:

• lsattr -l tty0 -a login -R

 

To display system level attributes, type:

• lsattr -E -l sys0

 

How many processors does my system have?

To display the number of processors on your system, type:

• lscfg | grep proc

 

How many hard disks does my system have and which ones are in use?

To display the number of hard disks on your system, type:

• lspv

 

How do I list information about a specific physical volume?

To find details about hdisk1, for example, run the following command:

• lspv hdisk1

 

 How do I get a detailed configuration of my system?

Type the following:

• lscfg

 

The following options provide specific information:

• -p Displays platform-specific device information. The flag is applicable to AIX V4.2.1 or later.
• -v Displays the VPD (Vital Product Database) found in the customized VPD object class.

For example, to display details about the tape drive, rmt0, type:

• lscfg -vl rmt0

 

You can obtain similar information by running the prtconf command.

 

How do I find out the chip type, system name, node name, model number, and so forth?

• The uname command provides details about your system.
• uname -p Displays the chip type of the system. For example, PowerPC®.
• uname -r Displays the release number of the operating system.
• uname -s Displays the system name. For example, AIX.
• uname -n Displays the name of the node.
• uname -a Displays the system name, nodename, version, machine ID.
• uname -M Displays the system model name. For example, IBM, 9114-275.
• uname -v Displays the operating system version.
• uname -m Displays the machine ID number of the hardware running the system.
• uname -u Displays the system ID number.

 

 AIX Versions and Release

What version, release, and maintenance level of AIX is running on my system?

Type one of the following:

• oslevel -r

 

• lslpp -h bos.rte

 

How can I determine which fileset updates are missing from a particular AIX level?

To determine which fileset updates are missing from 5300-04, for example, run the following command:

• oslevel -rl 5300-04

 

What SP (Service Pack) is installed on my system?

To see which SP is currently installed on the system, run the oslevel -s command. Sample output for an AIX 5L Version 5.3 system, with TL4, and SP2 installed, would be:

oslevel 5300-04-02

 

 Is a CSP (Concluding Service Pack) installed on my system?

To see if a CSP is currently installed on the system, run the oslevel -s command. Sample output for an AIX 5L Version 5.3 system, with TL3, and CSP installed, would be:

oslevel  5300-03-CSP

 

 

How do I create a file system?

The following command will create, within volume group testvg, a jfs file system of 10MB with mounting point /fs1:

• crfs -v jfs -g testvg -a size=10M -m /fs1

 

 

The following command will create, within volume group testvg, a jfs2 file system of 10MB with mounting point /fs2 and having read-only permissions:

• crfs -v jfs2 -g testvg -a size=10M -p ro -m /fs2

 

 

How do I change the size of a file system?

To increase the /usr file system size by 1000000 512-byte blocks, type:

• chfs -a size=+1000000 /usr

 Note: In AIX V5.3, the size of a JFS2 file system can be shrunk, as well.

• How do I mount a CD?

Type the following:

• mount -V cdrfs -o ro /dev/cd0 /cdrom

 

How do I mount a file system?

The following command will mount file system /dev/fslv02 on the /test directory:

• mount /dev/fslv02 /test

 

 

How do I mount all default file systems (all standard file systems in the /etc/filesystems file marked by the mount=true attribute)?

The following command will mount all such file systems:

• mount {-a|all}

 

 

How do I unmount a file system?

Type the following command to unmount /test file system:

• umount /test

 

 

How do I display mounted file systems?

Type the following command to display information about all currently mounted file systems:

• mount

 

 

How do I remove a file system?

Type the following command to remove the /test file system:

• rmfs /test

 

 

How can I defragment a file system?

The defragfs command can be used to improve or report the status of contiguous space within a file system. For example, to defragment the file system /home, use the following command:

• defragfs /home

 

 

Which fileset contains a particular binary?

To show bos.acct contains /usr/bin/vmstat, type:

• lslpp -w /usr/bin/vmstat

 

Or to show bos.perf.tools contains /usr/bin/svmon, type:

• which_fileset svmon

 

How do I display information about installed filesets on my system?

Type the following:

• lslpp -l

 

 

How do I determine if all filesets of maintenance levels are installed on my system?

Type the following:

• instfix -i | grep ML

 

How do I determine if a fix is installed on my system?

To determine if IY24043 is installed, type:

• instfix -ik IY24043

 

How do I install an individual fix by APAR?

To install APAR IY73748 from /dev/cd0, for example, enter the command:

• instfix -k IY73748 -d /dev/cd0

 

 

How do I verify if filesets have required prerequisites and are completely installed?

To show which filesets need to be installed or corrected, type:

• lppchk -v

 

How do I get a dump of the header of the loader section and the symbol entries in symbolic representation?

Type the following:

• dump -Htv

 

How do I determine the amount of paging space allocated and in use?

Type the following:

• lsps -a

 

How do I increase a paging space?

You can use the chps -s command to dynamically increase the size of a paging space. For example, if you want to increase the size of hd6 with 3 logical partitions, you issue the following command:

• chps -s 3 hd6

 

 

How do I reduce a paging space?

You can use the chps -d command to dynamically reduce the size of a paging space. For example, if you want to decrease the size of hd6 with four logical partitions, you issue the following command:

• chps -d 4 hd6

 

 

How would I know if my system is capable of using Simultaneous Multi-threading (SMT)?

Your system is capable of SMT if it’s a POWER5®-based system running AIX 5L Version 5.3.

 

How would I know if SMT is enabled for my system?

If you run the smtctl command without any options, it tells you if it’s enabled or not.

 

Is SMT supported for the 32-bit kernel?

Yes, SMT is supported for both 32-bit and 64-bit kernel.

 

How do I enable or disable SMT?

You can enable or disable SMT by running the smtctl command. The following is the syntax:

• smtctl [ -m off | on [ -w boot | now]]

 

 The following options are available:

• -m off Sets SMT mode to disabled.
• -m on Sets SMT mode to enabled.
• -w boot Makes the SMT mode change effective on next and subsequent reboots if you run the bosboot command before the next system reboot.
• -w now Makes the SMT mode change immediately but will not persist across reboot.
• If neither the -w boot or the -w now options are specified, then the mode change is made immediately. It persists across subsequent reboots if you run the bosboot command before the next system reboot.

 

How do I get partition-specific information and statistics?

The lparstat command provides a report of partition information and utilization statistics. This command also provides a display of Hypervisor information.

Volume groups and logical volumes

 

How do I know if my volume group is normal, big, or scalable?

Run the lsvg command on the volume group and look at the value for MAX PVs. The value is 32 for normal, 128 for big, and 1024 for scalable volume group.

 

How can I create a volume group?

Use the following command, where spartition_size sets the number of megabytes (MB) in each physical partition where the partition_size is expressed in units of MB from 1 through 1024. (It’s 1 through 131072 for AIX V5.3.) The partition_size variable must be equal to a power of 2 (for example: 1, 2, 4, 8). The default value for standard and big volume groups is the lowest value to remain within the limitation of 1016 physical partitions per physical volume. The default value for scalable volume groups is the lowest value to accommodate 2040 physical partitions per physical volume.

• mkvg -y name_of_volume_group -s partition_size list_of_hard_disks

 

How can I change the characteristics of a volume group?

You use the following command to change the characteristics of a volume group:

• chvg

  

How do I create a logical volume?

Type the following:

• mklv -y name_of_logical_volume name_of_volume_group number_of_partition

 

How do I increase the size of a logical volume?

To increase the size of the logical volume represented by the lv05 directory by three logical partitions, for example, type:

• extendlv lv05 3

 

 

How do I display all logical volumes that are part of a volume group (for example, rootvg)?

You can display all logical volumes that are part of rootvg by typing the following command:

• lsvg -l rootvg

 

 

How do I list information about logical volumes?

Run the following command to display information about the logical volume lv1:

• lslv lv1

 

 

How do I remove a logical volume?

You can remove the logical volume lv7 by running the following command:

• rmlv lv7

 

The rmlv command removes only the logical volume, but does not remove other entities, such as file systems or paging spaces that were using the logical volume.

 

How do I mirror a logical volume?

• mklvcopy LogicalVolumeName Numberofcopies
• syncvg VolumeGroupName

 

How do I remove a copy of a logical volume?

You can use the rmlvcopy command to remove copies of logical partitions of a logical volume. To reduce the number of copies of each logical partition belonging to logical volume testlv, enter:

• rmlvcopy testlv 2

 

Each logical partition in the logical volume now has at most two physical partitions.

Queries about volume groups

 

To show volume groups in the system, type:

• lsvg

 To show all the characteristics of rootvg, type:

• lsvg rootvg

 To show disks used by rootvg, type:

• lsvg -p rootvg

 

How to add a disk to a volume group?

Type the following:

• extendvg VolumeGroupName hdisk0 hdisk1 … hdiskn

 

 

How do I find out what the maximum supported logical track group (LTG) size of my hard disk?

You can use the lquerypv command with the -M flag. The output gives the LTG size in KB. For instance, the LTG size for hdisk0 in the following example is 256KB.

• /usr/sbin/lquerypv -M hdisk0

256

 

You can also run the lspv command on the hard disk and look at the value for MAX REQUEST.

 

What does the syncvg command do?

The syncvg command is used to synchronize stale physical partitions. It accepts names of logical volumes, physical volumes, or volume groups as parameters.

For example, to synchronize the physical partitions located on physical volumes hdisk6 and hdisk7, use:

• syncvg -p hdisk4 hdisk5

 

 To synchronize all physical partitions from volume group testvg, use:

• syncvg -v testvg

 

 How do I replace a disk?

• extendvg VolumeGroupName hdisk_new
• migratepv hdisk_bad hdisk_new
• reducevg -d VolumeGroupName hdisk_bad

 

How can I clone (make a copy of) the rootvg?

You can run the alt_disk_copy command to copy the current rootvg to an alternate disk. The following example shows how to clone the rootvg to hdisk1.

• alt_disk_copy -d hdisk1

 

Network

 

How can I display or set values for network parameters?

The no command sets or displays current or next boot values for network tuning parameters.

 

How do I get the IP address of my machine?

Type one of the following:

• ifconfig -a

host Fully_Qualified_Host_Name

For example, type host www.unixadminschool.com.

 

How do I identify the network interfaces on my server?

Either of the following two commands will display the network interfaces:

• lsdev -Cc if
•  ifconfig -a

 To get information about one specific network interface, for example, tr0, run the command:

• ifconfig tr0

 

 How do I activate a network interface?

To activate the network interface tr0, run the command:

• ifconfig tr0 up

 

 How do I deactivate a network interface?

For example, to deactivate the network interface tr0, run the command:

• ifconfig tr0 down

 

 

How do I display routing table, interface, and protocol information?

To display routing table information for an Internet interface, type:

• netstat -r -f inet

  

To display interface information for an Internet interface, type:

• netstat -i -f inet

 

 To display statistics for each protocol, type:

• netstat -s -f inet

  

How do I record packets received or transmitted?

To record packets coming in and going out to any host on every interface, enter:

• iptrace /tmp/nettrace

 

 The trace information is placed into the /tmp/nettrace file.

To record packets received on an interface en0 from a remote host airmail over the telnet port, enter:

• iptrace -i en0 -p telnet -s airmail /tmp/telnet.trace

 

 The trace information is placed into the /tmp/telnet.trace file.

 

Workload partitions

 

How do I create a workload partition?

To create a workload partition named temp with the IP Address xxx.yyy.zzz.nnn, type:

• mkwpar -n temp -N address= xxx.yyy.zzz.nnn

 To create a workload partition with the specification file wpar1.spec, type:

• mkwpar -f /tmp/wpar1.spec

 

 

How do I create a new specification file for an existing workload partition wpar1?

To create a specification file wpar2.spec for an existing workload partition wpar1, type:

• mkwpar -e wpar1 -o /tmp/wpar2.spec -w

 

 How do I start a workload partition?

To start the workload partition called temp, type:

• startwpar temp

 

 

How do I stop a workload partition?

To stop the workload partition called temp, type:

• stopwpar temp

 

  

How do I log in to a workload partition?

To log in to the workload partition named wpar1 as user foo, type:

• clogin wpar1 -l foo

 

 

How do I run a command in a workload partition?

To run the /usr/bin/ps command as user root in a workload partition named howdy, type:

• clogin howdy -l root /usr/bin/ps

 

 

How do I remove a workload partition?

To remove the workload partition called temp, type:

• rmwpar temp

 

 To stop and remove the workload partition called temp preserving data on its file system, type:

• rmwpar -p -s temp

  

Note: Workload Partitions (WPARs), a set of completely new software-based system virtualization features, were introduced in IBM AIX Version 6.1.

Performance monitoring tools

 

How do I display virtual memory statistics?

To display a summary of the virtual memory statistics since boot, type:

• vmstat

To display five summaries at 2-second intervals, type:

• vmstat 2 5

 To display a summary of the statistics for all of the workload partitions after boot, type:

• vmstat -@ ALL

  To display all of the virtual memory statistics available for all of the workload partitions, type:

• vmstat -vs -@ ALL

 

 How do I display statistics for all TTY, CPU, and Disks?

To display a single set of statistics for all TTY, CPU, and Disks since boot, type:

• iostat

 

To display a continuous disk report at 2-second intervals for the disk with the logical name disk1, type:

• iostat -d disk1 2

 

To display 6 reports at 2-second intervals for the disk with the logical name disk1, type:

• iostat disk1 2 6

 

 To display 6 reports at 2-second intervals for all disks, type:

• iostat -d 2 6

  

To display only file system statistics for all workload partitions, type:

• iostat -F -@ ALL

 

 To display system throughput of all workload partitions along with the system, type:

• iostat -s -@ ALL

 

 

How do I display detailed local and remote system statistics?

Type the following command:

• topas

 

 To go directly to the process display, enter:

• topas -P

  

To go directly to the logical partition display, enter:

• topas -L

 

 To go directly to the disk metric display, enter:

• topas -D

 

 To go directly to the file system display, enter:

• topas -F

 

 

How do I report system unit activity?

Type the following command:

• sar

 

 

To report processor activity for the first two processors, enter:

• sar -u -P 0,1

 

 

This produces output similar to the following:

cpu %usr %sys %wio %idle

0 45 45 5 5

1 27 65 3 5