IBM AIX 7.2 – Common Problem 011 – 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

Users cannot login and errpt logs SEC_LDAP_BIND_FAIL events.

Environment & Reproduction

IBM AIX 7.2 LPAR exhibiting user authentication / LDAP issues under standard PowerVM workloads.

lssrc -s secldapclntd
lsldap passwd 

Root Cause Analysis

secldapclntd loses TLS session to AD/LDAP after certificate rotation.

Quick Triage

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

errpt | grep -i ldap
ls /etc/security/ldap

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Validate ldap.cfg, bind credentials, and TLS chain.

ldapsearch -h ldap1 -D "cn=bind" -w pw -b "" -s base
lsldap -a passwd

Solution – Primary Fix

Refresh secldapclntd with new certificates and bind DN.

stopsrc -s secldapclntd
startsrc -s secldapclntd
lsldap passwd 

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Fallback to local /etc/security/passwd and stage AD reconciliation.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

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

id 
lsldap passwd 

Rollback Plan

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

mkldap -U  # revert client config from backup

Prevention & Hardening

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

smit ldap  # enable cachetimeout and TLS strict

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

secldapclntd core; krb5 ticket expiry

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for aix-7.2.

View all aix-7.2 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

AIX Integration with LDAP and Kerberos