Power Systems for AIX III - Advanced Administration and Problem Determination

Course Duration	4 Days – Hands on
Course Fee	Available upon request (Write to us at info@tlcpak.com)
Operating System	AIX Version 7.1 and AIX 7.2
Course Location	Customer Onsite
Course Code	TN150
Group Discounts	Discounts are available for a classs of 5 and 8 students
Deliverables	Comprehensive Student Guide and Course Certificate

PURPOSE:
Learn advanced AIX system administrator skills focusing on availability and problem determination. Learn detailed knowledge of the ODM database where AIX maintains configuration information. Learn to monitor for and deal with AIX problems with emphasis on Logical Volume Manager problems, including procedures for replacing disks. Learn how to configure AIX Workload Partitions by using software based virtualization without services disruption.

AUDIENCE:
This is an advanced course for AIX system administrators, and system support individuals with at least six months of experience in AIX operating system.

PREREQUISITES:
Participants should be familiar with various system administration tasks.

Can use Hardware Management Console (HMC) to activate a logical partition running AIX and to access the AIX system console
Understand AIX backup and recovery procedures including mksysb, savevg, and restvg
Manage additional software and base operating system updates including AIX Technology Levels and Service Packs
Understand how to manage file systems, logical volumes, and volume groups
Understand basic performance monitoring tools and filesystem fragmentation problems
Understand basic Workload Partition (WPAR) concepts and commands
Should be well familiar with using tools like vi editor, command execution, input and output redirection, and the use of utilities such as grep

SKILLS TAUGHT:
On completion of this course, students should be able to:

Able to perform system problem determination and reporting procedures including analyzing error logs, creating dumps of the system, and providing needed data to the AIX Support personnel
Understand how to examine and manipulate AIX Object Data Manager databases
Identify and resolve conflicts between the Logical Volume Manager (LVM) disk structures and the Object Data Manager (ODM)
Identify various types of boot and disk failures and perform the matching recovery procedures
Implement advanced methods such as alternate disk install, multibos, and features of JFS2 file system

COURSE OUTLINE

The ODM

• ODM Components and Commands
• Changing Attribute Values
• Data Managed by the ODM
• Data not Managed by the ODM
• ODM Database Files
• ODM Repositories
• Software Vital Product Data
• Predefined Devices
• Predefined Attributes, Customized Devices, Customized Attributes
• ODM Class Integration

Disk Management Theory

• LVM Terms
• Volume Group Limits
• Mirroring Striping
• Mirroring and Striping with RAID
• Basic LVM Tasks
• LVM Data Representation
• LVM Data on Disk Control Blocks
• LVM O/S Data
• Contents of the VGDA
• The Logical Volume Control Block (LVCB)
• LVM interaction with the ODM and VGDA
• ODM entries for PVs, VGs and LVs
• ODM-related LVM Problems
• Fixing ODM problems
• Mirroring
• Stale Partitions
• Mirrored LVs
• Mirror Write Consistency
• Mirroring rootvg
• VGDA Count and Quorum

Error Monitoring & System Dump

• Working with diag and Diagnostic Modes
• Using SMS for Diagnostics
• The AIX Dump Facility
• How to invoke a System Dump
• When a Dump occurs
• The sysdumpdev Command
• Methods of Starting a Dump
• Generating Dumps with SMIT
• Dump related LED codes

System Initialization

• How does an AIX system boot?
• Loading of the Boot Image
• Boot Logical Volume (hd5)
• How to fix a corrupted BLV
• Working with bootlists
• Service Processor and Boot failures
• TTY Remote Reboot
• Accessing a System that will not boot
• Booting and Working in Maintenance Mode
• Boot Problem References
• Flashing 888
• Getting Firmware updates from the Internet
• The rc.boot File
• Configuration Manager
• Config Rules Object Class
• Output of cfgmgr in the boot alog
• The /etc/inittab File

Disk Management Procedures

• Disk Replacement Techniques
• Replacing a rootvg Disk
• Total Disk Failure
• Volume Group Failure
• Total non-rootvg Failure
• Disk Replacement Failures
• Importing and Exporting a Volume Group
• Import/Export Issues
• Saving and Restoring Volume Groups
• Creating a System Backup (mksysb)
• mksysb Tape Images
• Verifying the System Backup
• The mksysb bosinst.data File
• Restoring a mksysb
• Cloning Systems using mksysb Tapes
• Changing the Partition Size in rootvg
• Reducing a Filesystem in rootvg
• Alternate Disk Installation using mksysb Disk Install
• Removing an Alternate Disk Installation
• Saving and Restoring non-rootvg Volume Groups
• Error Logging Components
• Generating an Error Report
• The errpt Command
• Types of Disk Errors
• LVM Error Log Entries
• Maintaining the Error Log