IBM AIX 7.1 – Common Problem 009 – Diagnosis and Fix

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents

1. Symptom & Impact
2. Environment & Reproduction
3. Root Cause Analysis
4. Quick Triage
5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
6. Solution – Primary Fix
7. Solution – Alternative Approaches
8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
9. Rollback Plan
10. Prevention & Hardening
11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

PowerHA reports node DOWN and resource group fails to acquire on standby.

Environment & Reproduction

IBM AIX 7.2 LPAR exhibiting HACMP/PowerHA cluster failover issues under standard PowerVM workloads.

clRGinfo
lssrc -ls clstrmgrES

Root Cause Analysis

Heartbeat network loss or RG dependency cycle prevents acquisition.

Quick Triage

Confirm scope with errpt, recent changes, and subsystem state via lssrc.

errpt | grep -i CLUSTER
lssrc -ls topsvcs

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Trace clstrmgr log and verify network and disk heartbeat paths.

clcmd lssrc -ls clstrmgrES
tail /var/hacmp/log/clstrmgr.debug

Solution – Primary Fix

Force RG move to the healthy node and clear sticky locations.

clRGmove -g rg1 -n node2 -m
clRGinfo -v

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Run cluster verification and synchronisation after fixing config drift.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Confirm subsystem returns to RUNNING state and errpt shows no new entries.

clRGinfo
lssrc -ls clstrmgrES

Rollback Plan

Restore prior configuration from mksysb or alt_disk_install clone if the fix regresses.

clRGmove -g rg1 -n node1 -m  # only after root cause cleared

Prevention & Hardening

Encode the fix in NIM customisation scripts and monitor via topas/nmon.

smit clverify  # schedule verification weekly

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

errpt LABEL=NETWORK_DOWN; topsvcs daemon stops

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for aix-7.1.

View all aix-7.1 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

IBM PowerHA SystemMirror Administration