ITEM: AH7020L

(ARTIC) Microcode installation & information

Question:
We have a RISC/6000 running AIX V 3.2.5 and IBM's SNA running on an IBM
Portmaster adapter with Selectable EIB (formerly known as the MPQP
adapter).  We also have a 3rd party's X.25 and BSC software that utilizes
the ARTIC Portmaster Adapter/A with 8-port RS232C EIB (V.24) and, I think,
an ARTIC Multiport adapter.

When I run adapter diagnostics, things work fine for the SNA adapter, but
I receive an error message about missing microcode when I try this on
the Portmaster.  I execute the following steps:

   diag
   Diagnostic Routines
   System Verification on apm1, I see status messages such as:
      Testing
      Stand by
      All okay

   At the end of diagnostics, the following message is posted:
     "Portmaster Adapter operational microcode is missing
      Microcode is either missing or not accessible and is
      necessary for operations"

I believe this is happening because the 3rd party software provider has
written and included their own microcode.  What microcode is the diagnostic
program looking for and where can I get it so that I can successfully run
adapter diagnostics?

Response:

Actually, there is no adapter problem -- the previous messages indicate
that the adapter has passed diagnostics.  At the end of the routine, however,
the program checks for the following microcode files:

     /etc/microcode/icarcm.com (for Portmaster)
     /etc/microcode/icaaim.com (for X.25 and Multiport)

The files, themselves, are shipped with the adapter (on the Options 
Diskette).  In fact, users running IBM AIX V3 X.25 software will recognize
the icaaim.com file as it must be loaded for the X.25 adapter to run. (This
file is NOT required for X.25 users running the new AIX X.25 LPPs.)

The diagnostic routine looks for the file name only so, in your case, simply
creating an empty file with this name will satisfy the diagnostic routine.  

Note:  The routine doesn't seem to be sensitive to permissions and ownership.
In my tests, the empty files were owned by a member of the system group and
had permissions -rw-r--r--



Support Line: (ARTIC) Microcode installation & information ITEM: AH7020L

Dated: April 1995 Category: N/A

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