AIX 5.1 Installation Tips

June 12, 2001

This document contains the latest tips for successful installation of AIX 5.1, and will be updated as new tips become available.

APARs and PTFs mentioned in this document, when available, can be obtained from FixDist. Information on obtaining and using FixDist is available at the following URL.

Contents

• mksysb Installation Failure
• update_all Failure on NIM SPOT
• System Crash Applying Updates

mksysb Installation Failure

System backups (mksysb) made on systems using JFS2 filesystems in rootvg will fail to install with an error similar to the following.

     mkfs: cannot execute module "/sbin/helpers/jfs2/mkfs".
     Check for existence. BOS Install: could not create the / file system.

To circumvent this problem, boot from volume 1 of the AIX 5.1 installation media and then restore the mksysb tape.

This problem is resolved by APAR IY18859. After installing the updates for APAR IY18859, you must recreate your mksysb.

update_all Failure on NIM SPOT

Atempting to do an update_all into a NIM SPOT will fail with a message similar to the following.

     042-175 c_instspot: An unexpected result was returned by the
     "/usr/sbin/installp" command:
     See the log file:
     /export3/spot/spot_15E/usr/lpp/bos/inst_root/var/adm/ras/nim.installp
     for details or use the "showlog" operation.

This problem is resolved by APAR IY19531. The update for APAR IY19531 must be applied to the NIM master before attempting to apply other updates to a SPOT.

System Crash Applying Updates

Systems using JFS2 filesystems in rootvg can crash when applying updates that archive library members. The failure could also occur when using the 'ar' command in a JFS2 filesystem.

This problem is resolved by APAR IY19375 in the following fileset updates.

        bos.mpi         5.1.0.1
        bos.mp64        5.1.0.1
        bos.up          5.1.0.1

The updates for APAR IY19375 must be installed separately and the system must be rebooted before other updates can be safely applied.