IBM AIX 7.1 – Common Problem 111 – 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

df reports /tmp at 100% and applications fail to write temp files.

Environment & Reproduction

AIX 7.2 default /tmp size of 128MB exhausted by long-running job.

Root Cause Analysis

Application or compiler does not clean up scratch files.

Quick Triage

Run df -g and du -sm /tmp/* | sort -n to find the largest consumers.

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

List open temp files with fuser -c /tmp to identify holding processes.

Solution – Primary Fix

Extend /tmp with chfs -a size=+1G /tmp once free PPs are confirmed.

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Symlink the heavy directory to another filesystem if /tmp cannot grow.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

df -g /tmp shows headroom and applications resume writes successfully.

Rollback Plan

Shrink /tmp again with chfs -a size=-512M /tmp if the spike was transient.

Prevention & Hardening

Add a Nagios/IBM Director check and rotate temp data on a schedule.

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

May coincide with J2_SETXATTR_FAIL or JFS2 inode warnings.

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 Docs: chfs, df, JFS2 sizing on AIX 7.2.