Subject: Determining if a Reboot is Required After Installing Software

Audience: administrators

Date: December 10, 2004

You've just installed an AIX LPP. Do you need to reboot?

The answer is in the ".toc" file** associated with the installp filesets. The ".toc" file contains lines like

    bos.adt.libm 05.02.0000.0000 1 N U en_US ...

The "N" character means no reboot is required. On the other hand, if the line has a "b" character, a reboot is necessary. An example of such a line would be

    bos.mp64 05.02.0000.0000 1 b B en_US ...

For more information on the format of the ".toc" file, see the "The lpp_name Package Information File" section at

http://publib16.boulder.ibm.com/doc_link/en_US/a_doc_lib/aixprggd/genprogc/pkging_sw4_install.htm

** The ".toc" file is always on an installp CD. If the filesets are on disk, you can create the ".toc" file with the "inutoc ." command (note the "period" is part of the command).