IBM AIX 7.1 – Common Problem 016 – 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

errpt is empty while applications insist they logged failures.

Environment & Reproduction

IBM AIX 7.2 LPAR exhibiting syslogd misconfiguration issues under standard PowerVM workloads.

lssrc -s syslogd
cat /etc/syslog.conf

Root Cause Analysis

syslog selector or destination file path silently drops messages.

Quick Triage

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

logger -p user.err test
ls -l /var/log

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Trace logger output and confirm /etc/syslog.conf selectors.

logger -p local0.info testaix
tail /var/adm/messages

Solution – Primary Fix

Fix syslog.conf entries and refresh syslogd.

echo '*.info /var/adm/messages' >> /etc/syslog.conf
refresh -s syslogd

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Forward to remote rsyslog collector via TCP for durability.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

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

tail -f /var/adm/messages
lssrc -s syslogd

Rollback Plan

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

cp /etc/syslog.conf.bak /etc/syslog.conf
refresh -s syslogd

Prevention & Hardening

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

smit chinet  # rotate /var/adm/messages weekly

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

syslog selector typos; full /var/adm partition

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

AIX syslogd documentation