IBM AIX Administrator flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Physical partition size

The fixed allocation unit of an AIX volume group, normally 16 MB for native VGs and chosen at mkvg time with -s; changing it later requires recreating the VG.

mirrorvg command

Creates a second copy of every logical volume in a volume group, consuming free physical partitions equal to the current allocation; requires bosboot afterwards for rootvg.

syncvg -p

Resynchronizes stale physical partitions on a named physical volume after a disk outage, copying current data from the good mirror copy back to the returned disk.

reducevg

Removes a physical volume from a volume group; fails while logical volumes still occupy that disk, so migrate or delete those LVs first.

extendvg

Adds an initialized physical volume to an existing volume group, making its free physical partitions available for new logical volumes or mirror copies.

mklv copy count

The -c flag sets how many physical copies each logical partition keeps; copy 2 means mirroring and doubles the physical partitions required.

lslv -m output

Lists every logical partition of a logical volume with the physical volume and physical partition number holding each copy, revealing layout and mirror placement.

hd5 boot logical volume

Holds the boot image used before the kernel mounts root; rebuilt with bosboot and referenced by the bootlist, it must exist on each bootable disk.

bosboot -ad device

Writes a fresh boot image to the boot logical volume of the named disk; run after mirroring rootvg or changing kernel parameters that affect boot.

bootlist -m normal

Sets or displays the ordered list of devices the firmware tries at normal boot; for mirrored rootvg list both hdisks so either can boot.

crfs -v jfs2

Creates a JFS2 file system on a logical volume or in a volume group, with options for mount point, size, and whether to create the underlying LV automatically.

chfs -a size

Changes file system size; a leading plus or minus grows or shrinks relative to current size. JFS2 grows online but shrinks only when unmounted.

df -g and df -i

df -g reports capacity in gigabytes; df -i reports inode usage. JFS2 allocates inodes dynamically, so inode exhaustion is uncommon but still checkable.

errpt -a

Displays detailed error log entries including timestamp, error class, error ID, and description; filter with -d H for hardware or -d S for software.

errclear 0

Deletes all entries from the error log; the number is the age in days, so 0 clears everything and 7 removes entries older than a week.

errdemon and errlogger

errdemon is the background daemon collecting entries into the error log; errlogger writes an operator-supplied text message into that same log.

lsvg -l

Lists logical volumes in a volume group with type, logical partition count, physical partition count, and mount point, useful for spotting paging and log volumes.

JFS2 log volume

The journal used for JFS2 metadata recovery, usually hd8; it must be at least 4 MB and is formatted with logform only while unmounted.

varyonvg and varyoffvg

Activate or deactivate a volume group for use on the current system; varyoffvg fails if file systems in the group are still mounted.

exportvg and importvg

exportvg removes a volume group definition from the ODM without touching data; importvg on another system recreates the definition from the disks.

lsvg -p state column

Reports each physical volume in a volume group as active, missing, or removed, which identifies disks needing syncvg or reconnection.

smitty lv

Menu path for logical volume tasks including create, resize, copy, and delete; changes made here are equivalent to the mklv, chlv, and rmlv commands.

migratepv

Moves all logical partitions from one physical volume to one or more others within the same volume group, enabling disk replacement without downtime.

chpv -v r

Marks a physical volume as removed so the volume group stops allocating to it; pair with migratepv to relocate existing partitions first.

paging space

Swap logical volumes, typically hd6; lsvg -l shows type paging. lsps -a reports size and percent used; AIX can deactivate all but one paging space.

sysdump volume

A logical volume of type sysdump reserved for capturing a system dump; sysdumpdev -l shows the primary and secondary dump devices and their sizes.

inittab runlevel entries

Each /etc/inittab stanza has an identifier, runlevel, action, and command; action respawn restarts the command, and telinit q makes init reread the file.

startsrc and stopsrc

Start or stop System Resource Controller subsystems and subservers; lssrc -a lists all known subsystems and whether each is active or inoperative.

ODM

Object Data Manager stores system configuration such as device definitions and volume group metadata in binary files under /etc/objrepos.

cfgmgr

Configures devices detected since the last run and loads their drivers; run after adding hardware or installing device software, or use smitty devices.

lsdev -Cc disk

Lists disk devices with name, status, and location code; status Available means the device is configured and usable by the system.

alt_disk_copy

Clones the running rootvg to an alternate disk for backup or upgrade rollback; the clone is made bootable and the original remains untouched until reboot.