POST regularly retrieves all relevant AIX APARs/fixes/patches and makes them available to campus customers via NFS mount from post.doit.wisc.edu. Once the filesystem is mounted, you can use SMIT to update_all and have a patched machine. You should do this on a regular basis and after adding any new software to avoid security and performance problems!

It is strongly suggested to not commit patches, but just to apply them. Sometimes patches from IBM cause problems, and being able to back out of them is one of the best features of AIX package management. After several weeks of operation you can probably commit the packages, using SMIT's menu interface.

Because patches and updates change, there will be a little vagueness to these instructions (we don't want to rewrite them every time we put a new patch there!). To clear that up, look in the NFS-mounted directory before starting SMIT. In the fix directories (/aix/xxx/fix) you will often see a yyyy-zz (where yyyy is the OS level and zz is the maintenance level, such as 5100-01 or 4330-09) or sometimes 'latest' (when there are lots of new patches but no new maintenance level).

Currently you can replace 'xxx' with either '433' or '51' in these instructions. When in doubt, use showmount (showmount -e post.doit.wisc.edu).

Start by mounting post.doit.wisc.edu:

Start SMIT and use the update_all functionality:

When it prompts for "INPUT device / directory for software" specify the appropriate directory in /mnt. If the latest maintenance level for AIX 5.1 is 5100-03, then you would specify:

For all the fixes after AIX 5.1 maintenance level 3, look in:

Again, it helps to use your head and look in the directory ahead of time.

Please remember to unmount the NFS mount afterwards, for your own sanity. Networks are not always stable, and missing NFS mounts can cause your machine to hang.