IBM AIX 7.3 – Common Problem 124 – 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

Sustained 100% CPU on a single SMT thread; iptrace running.

Environment & Reproduction

Network capture was started for incident and never stopped.

Root Cause Analysis

iptrace and ipreport consume CPU writing trace files.

Quick Triage

Run ps -ef | grep -E ‘iptrace|ipreport’ and pstat -A.

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Check /var or capture path for growing iptrace files.

Solution – Primary Fix

Stop with stopsrc -s iptrace then archive/remove capture file.

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Use tcpdump (bos.net) for targeted, time-bounded captures.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

CPU drops below 20% and iptrace process is gone.

Rollback Plan

Restart capture with -L size cap if still needed.

Prevention & Hardening

Wrap iptrace in cron with auto-stop after N minutes.

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Pairs with /var filling alerts from monitoring.

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 Docs: iptrace, tcpdump on AIX.