IBM AIX 7.3 – Common Problem 238 – 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

Restoring a mksysb on a target LPAR aborts during BOS install or hangs in 0c46/0c47.

Environment & Reproduction

Usually due to mismatched device drivers, smaller target disks, or corrupted mksysb image.

Root Cause Analysis

BOS install cannot find required filesets/drivers in the SPOT for the target hardware.

Quick Triage

Run restore -Tqf /dev/rmt0 ./bosinst.data to inspect the image manifest.

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Validate the mksysb with restore -tvf image.bff and compare disk geometry with bootinfo -s.

Solution – Primary Fix

Recreate the mksysb with current device support enabled and matching SPOT, then re-run NIM.

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Use alt_disk_mksysb on a sized disk and adjust bosinst.data SHRINK=yes if disks differ.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

BOS install completes and the LPAR boots into the restored system with expected filesets.

Rollback Plan

Boot the original failing LPAR from its previous rootvg if the restore must be aborted.

Prevention & Hardening

Test mksysb restores quarterly on a sandbox LPAR to detect drift.

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Linked to NIM lpp_source and bootlist 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 mksysb and alt_disk_mksysb command references.