IBM AIX 7.1 – Common Problem 020 – 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

LPAR panics with 0c2/A05 progress codes and dumpdev reports a recent dump.

Environment & Reproduction

IBM AIX 7.2 LPAR exhibiting kernel panic / crash dump issues under standard PowerVM workloads.

sysdumpdev -L
errpt -j SYS_CRASH

Root Cause Analysis

Defective device driver or kernel extension forces a kernel panic.

Quick Triage

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

snap -ac
lssrc -s clstrmgrES

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Collect dump with snap and confirm dump device sized correctly.

sysdumpdev -e
sysdumpdev -p /dev/lg_dumplv

Solution – Primary Fix

Apply prerequisite APAR for the failing kext and rebuild bosboot.

emgr -e IV98765.epkg.Z
bosboot -ad /dev/hdisk0

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Disable suspect kext via genkex -d while awaiting IBM support fix.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

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

errpt -a -j SYS_CRASH | head
sysdumpdev -L

Rollback Plan

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

emgr -r -L IV98765  # rollback if dump returns

Prevention & Hardening

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

smit dump  # enable always-on dump compression

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

errpt LABEL=DSI_PROC; bosboot complaints

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 First Failure Data Capture (FFDC)