IBM AIX 7.3 – Common Problem 160 – 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

After a reboot several System Resource Controller subsystems remain inactive. Services like syslogd and snmpd are down causing monitoring gaps.

Environment & Reproduction

Occurs after disk full events or manual /etc/inittab edits.

lssrc -a | head
oslevel -s
uname -a

Root Cause Analysis

Cause is typically a corrupt /etc/objrepos/SRCsubsys ODM class or invalid /etc/inittab entry blocking the srcmstr line.

Quick Triage

Inspect inittab, SRC status, and recent ODM edits.

lssrc -a | head

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Capture deeper evidence to isolate the failure path.

lssrc -a | head
ps -ef | grep srcmstr
grep srcmstr /etc/inittab
odmget SRCsubsys | head
errpt | head

Solution – Primary Fix

Apply the proven primary fix in a controlled change window.

telinit q
startsrc -s syslogd
startsrc -s snmpd
refresh -s inetd
mkitab 'srcmstr:23456789:respawn:/usr/sbin/srcmstr'

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Use these alternatives when the primary fix is blocked by environmental constraints.

savebase
restore -xqvf /tmp/srcmstr.bk
bosboot -ad /dev/ipldevice

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Confirm the system meets acceptance criteria after the change.

lssrc -a
ps -ef | grep srcmstr
lssrc -s syslogd

Rollback Plan

Revert cleanly if regressions appear during validation.

stopsrc -a
mv /etc/objrepos/SRCsubsys.bak /etc/objrepos/SRCsubsys
reboot

Prevention & Hardening

Reduce recurrence with monitoring and preventive tuning.

savebase
crontab -l | grep lssrc
errnotify -a 'en_name=srcmstr'

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Related to inittab corruption, RMC subsystem failures, and ODM lock issues.

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

IBM AIX 7.3 Commands reference for srcmstr, lssrc, mkitab.