Starting with AIX 7.2, NIM supports the use of HTTP. The new NIM service handler nimhttp (port 4901) is available for this purpose. This offers the possibility of making YUM repositories available on a NIM server with the help of this NIM service handler. To do this, the repositories must be saved under the document root (/export/nim by default). AIX clients can then access the repositories using HTTP with port nummer 4901.
The repositories must be configured on the AIX client under /opt/freeware/etc/yum/yum.conf or /opt/freeware/etc/yum/repos.d. All available YUM operations are supported in this way.
If nimhttp is already used on the NIM server, this does not result in any additional effort.
The following shows the configuration for using YUM with nimhttp.
The first requirement is that the NIM service handler nimhttp is active on the NIM server:
aixnim # lssrc -s nimhttp
Subsystem Group PID Status
nimhttp 19136996 active
aixnim #
If nimhttp has not yet been activated, this can be done using the nimconfig command on the NIM server:
aixnim # nimconfig -h
0513-077 Subsystem has been changed.
0513-059 The nimhttp Subsystem has been started. Subsystem PID is 19136996.
aixnim #
Note: The configuration of nimhttp is shown elsewhere.
For test purposes, we create a small text file on the NIM server under /export/nim (document root):
aixnim # echo "testfile for nimhttp" >/export/nim/testfile
aixnim #
Next, we check the functionality on the NIM client by downloading the test file from the NIM server with the NIM client command nimhttp:
aix01 # nimhttp -f testfile -o dest=/tmp -v
nimhttp: (source) testfile
nimhttp: (dest_dir) /tmp
nimhttp: (verbose) debug
nimhttp: (master_ip) aixnim
nimhttp: (master_port) 4901
sending to master...
size= 46
pull_request= "GET /testfile HTTP/1.1
Connection: close
"
Writing 21 bytes of data to /tmp/testfile
Total size of datalen is 21. Content_length size is 21.
aix01 #
(The ‘-v‘ option provides the debugging output shown.)
The test file was saved under /tmp/testfile.
Another test with the command curl (available from the AIX toolbox) also shows that nimhttp can be used successfully to download data:
aix01 # curl http://aixnim:4901/testfile
testfile for nimhttp
aix01 #
The use of nimhttp to access YUM repositories should therefore be possible in principle.
We have copies of the AIX Toolbox repositories provided by IBM on our NIM server in the following directories:
/export/nim/aixtoolbox/RPMS/noarch AIX_Toolbox_noach (AIX noarch repository)
/export/nim/aixtoolbox/RPMS/ppc AIX_Toolbox (AIX generic repository)
/export/nim/aixtoolbox/RPMS/ppc-7.1 AIX_Toolbox_71 (AIX 7.1 specific repository)
/export/nim/aixtoolbox/RPMS/ppc-7.2 AIX_Toolbox_72 (AIX 7.2 specific repository)
In order for an AIX client system to be able to access these repositories, they must be referenced in the YUM configuration. For the sake of simplicity, we have entered the repositories in the configuration file /opt/freeware/etc/yum/yum.conf:
aix01 # vi /opt/freeware/etc/yum/yum.conf
[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
keepcache=1
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log
exactarch=1
obsoletes=1
[AIX_Toolbox]
name=AIX generic repository
baseurl=http://aixnim:4901/aixtoolbox/RPMS/ppc/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0
[AIX_Toolbox_noarch]
name=AIX noarch repository
baseurl=http://aixnim:4901/aixtoolbox/RPMS/noarch/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0
[AIX_Toolbox_72]
name=AIX 7.2 specific repository
baseurl=http://aixnim:4901/aixtoolbox/RPMS/ppc-7.2/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0
aix01 #
Alternatively, a separate repo file can be created for each repository under /opt/freeware/etc/yum/repos.d.
The key entry is the baseurl attribute. The URL used here is http. The host name of the NIM server is given the port number of nimhttp (port 4901) separated by a colon. The path is then relative to /export/nim (document root) on the NIM server.
A list of the available YUM repositories printed by the command “yum repolist” shows the expected repositories:
aix01 # yum repolist
repo id repo name status
AIX_Toolbox AIX generic repository 2740
AIX_Toolbox_72 AIX 7.2 specific repository 417
AIX_Toolbox_noarch AIX noarch repository 301
repolist: 3458
aix01 #
To demonstrate that installing RPMs in this way with nimhttp is also possible, we show the installation of wget:
aix01 # yum install wget
Setting up Install Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package wget.ppc 0:1.21.1-1 will be installed
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Dependencies Resolved
========================================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
========================================================================================================
Installing:
wget ppc 1.21.1-1 AIX_Toolbox 703 k
Transaction Summary
========================================================================================================
Install 1 Package
Total size: 703 k
Installed size: 1.4 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
Running Transaction Check
Running Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Installing : wget-1.21.1-1.ppc 1/1
From wget-1.21.1 onwards, symbolic link of wget in /usr/bin is removed.
The binary is shipped in /opt/freeware/bin. Please use absolute path or
add /opt/freeware/bin in PATH environment variable to use the binary.
Installed:
wget.ppc 0:1.21.1-1
Complete!
aix01 #
The AIX system does not necessarily have to be a NIM client, as YUM does not use NIM. YUM only uses the http server provided by the NIM master. The AIX version is also irrelevant, the AIX client can run on AIX 7.1 or AIX 7.2.
Note: For AIX 7.3, the Dandified YUM (DNF) is used instead of YUM.
