IBM AIX 7.3 – Common Problem 025 – 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

geninstall -k AIX Live Update aborts with rollback to original partition.

Environment & Reproduction

IBM AIX 7.3 LPAR exhibiting Live Update kernel patch fails issues under standard PowerVM workloads.

lvupdate -i
oslevel -s

Root Cause Analysis

Insufficient free PPs in rootvg or surrogate LPAR resources unavailable.

Quick Triage

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

lsvg rootvg
lvupdate -i

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Review /var/adm/ras/liveupdate logs and verify HMC resources.

tail /var/adm/ras/liveupdate/lvupdlog
lvupdate -i

Solution – Primary Fix

Free PPs in rootvg or expand and retry Live Update.

extendvg rootvg hdisk2
geninstall -k -d /mnt/lpp_source ALL

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Apply the patch via traditional installp followed by a scheduled reboot.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

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

oslevel -s
lvupdate -i

Rollback Plan

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

alt_disk_install -C hdisk1  # boot back to clone

Prevention & Hardening

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

smit nim  # standardise lpp_source levels

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Live Update preview failures; HSCL errors

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for aix-7.3.

View all aix-7.3 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

AIX Live Update planning guide