This document contains the latest tips for successfully installing AIX Version 4.2, and it will be updated as new tips become available.
APARs mentioned in this document, when available, can be obtained from FixDist. Information on obtaining and using FixDist is available at the following URL:
http://service.software.ibm.com/support/rs6000
When the AIX disk power management attempts to spin up multiple disk drives simultaneously, it can cause a power supply overcurrent condition that results in the system powering down with 40110001 in LEDs. This has been seen on 7025-F50 and 7026-H50 systems with a large number of disks in a volume group.
This problem can be avoided by disabling disk power management using the following command:
pmctrl -ea full_on
To resolve this problem, install APAR IX78693, which updates devices.pci.14102e00.rte to level 4.2.1.5 and devices.scsi.disk.rte to level 4.2.1.5.
Netscape Communicator and Navigator Version 4 use a private copy of the AIX C library (libc.a) which must stay in sync with other shared AIX libraries. If updates have been applied to an AIX 4.2 system, Netscape Communicator or Navigator may fail to start with an "Exec format" error, similar to the following:
Could not load program netscape_aix4
Symbol snprintf in /usr/lib/libX11.a is undefined
Could not load library libXt.a [shr4.o]
Error was: Exec format error
To correct this problem, refer to the following URL for instructions on downloading and installing the fix:
ftp://aix.software.ibm.com/aix/efixes/netscape/
As a measure of precaution against instability, CD-ROM Volume 2 of AIX 4.2 contains subsets of some images, whereas the complete image is contained on Volume 1. When copying software to your hard disk from Volume 2 after Volume 1, these subsets will overwrite the complete images aready extracted from Volume 1. The easiest way to avoid this overwriting is to copy the desired images first from Volume 2, and then copy images from Volume 1.
NOTE: This applies to the ECP parallel port on the planar of 7043 models 150 and 260 only.
A Clone system is defined as any system which is installed from a mksysb image that was created on a different system. After you install a Clone system, the TCP/IP loopback interface, lo0, will be in the "down" state. This causes the CDE Desktop to hang during startup. The problem will NOT occur when you install the mksysb image onto the same system on which it was created.
Workarounds include:
chdev -l lo0 -a state=up
chdev -l lo0 -a state=up
Then create the mksysb image from the source system. This will cause the loopback interface to be started immediately after the first boot after the Clone installation completes.
The condition of WebSM icons missing from the System_Administration folder view is caused by the Help viewer and Application Manager being started at the same time from Web-based System Manager icons.
Workaround: Close the Help viewer window, log out and log back in.
Fix: Delete the following lines from the /usr/dt/config/<LANG>/sys.session file:
# # Start up the Introduction Manager or if not available, Help4Help. # dtsmcmd -cmd "/usr/dt/bin/helpnewuser"
Even when the icons do not appear with the proper colors, they still function correctly.
AIX 4.1.5 systems with bos.rte.lvm between the levels of 4.1.5.9 and 4.1.5.13 will experience errors when migrating to AIX 4.2.1. To resolve this problem, before beginning the migration, install APAR IX72646, which updates bos.rte.lvm to 4.1.5.14.
The AIX 4.2.1 Release Notes indicate that sendmail 5.64 can be used on AIX 4.2. This is true only on AIX Version 4.2.0 systems without updates. Changes to system libraries in updates or AIX 4.2.1 will cause the older level of sendmail not to work. sendmail 8.7, which is included in AIX 4.2, must be used on AIX 4.2.1.
When you are installing the Server bundle from CD-ROM using SMIT Install Software Bundle (Easy Install), the following error regarding the installation of InfoExplorer database filesets may be displayed:
The following is a list of bundle entries for which no
matching filesets were found on the media.
bos.info.en_US.manage_gds
bos.info.en_US.probsolv_gds
The errors occur because these filesets are on CD-ROM Volume 2.
Preservation Installation from a Network Installation Manager (NIM) server on systems with 16MB memory or less may fail. Possible workarounds are as follows:
NIM installation of systems using the 10/100 Mbs Ethernet MC Adapter
(features 2964 and 2994) may fail, or installation performance can be poor.
The problems only occur during NIM installation.
Normal operation is not affected. To resolve this problem,
install APAR IX67882 on the client system.
This APAR updates bos.sysmgt.nim.master to level 4.2.1.1.
The Install & Update Software Manager ('xinstallm') can hang after installing AIX Connections. The workaround is to use SMIT to install AIX Connections.
The performance of the PCI Ethernet Adapter (Features 2985 and 2987), when used in the 7025-F50, can be significantly improved by setting the tx_que_size and rx_que_size parameters to 256. This can be accomplished by using the following command to change the adapter settings:
smit chgenet
Set the "HARDWARE TRANSMIT" queue size and "HARDWARE RECEIVE" queue size fields to 256.
A problem that manifests itself as a system hang has been discovered in the ORACLE kernel extension pw-syscall4.1 running on SMP processors. The problem has been experienced only on the 604 with six or more processors running Oracle Version 7.1.6 and applications with heavy insert activity.
ORACLE provides a new kernel extension with ORACLE version 7.3.2 that fixes the problem. Customers should upgrade their ORACLE post wait kernel extension before the installation of the 604 processor. Please contact the ORACLE support representative (and refer to BUG 397843 filed for SAP) if you have any questions about this problem.
The AIX man command searches the Hypertext Information Libraries in addition to traditional man pages. The Hypertext Information Base Libraries are available on CD-ROM, or may be installed on disk from the AIX 4.2 Installation media. The AIX commands and file formats man pages are in the following Hypertext Information Libraries, each of which can be installed separately.
| Fileset Name | Size in MB | Commands Database | 28 |
| Files Database | 11 |
After successfully installing and committing ESSL 2.2.2 on AIX 4.1 or 4.2, lppchk -c may produce the following errors.
lppchk: 0504-206 File /usr/lpp/essl/essl.rs1.rte/2.2.2.1
could not be located.
lppchk: 0504-206 File /usr/lpp/essl/essl.rs2.rte/2.2.2.1
could not be located.
These errors are due to temporary directories, which are removed as part of the
commit process, having entries in the ODM inventory object. The errors can be
safely ignored.