Running the “hmc rescan” command, updates local files with basic information about the mapping of LPARs, managed systems and HMCs:

hmc rescan [-v] [<hmc> ...]

The mapping of LPARs to managed systems and HMCs is stored in the user’s home directory in three files:

• •  hmc.list – List of HMCs known to the LPAR-Tool
  • ms.list – List of managed systems and assignment to HMCs
  • lpar.list – List of LPARs and assignment to the managed systems

If LPARs are created, deleted or moved by other users or with other tools (HMC GUI, HMC CLI, PowerVC), the assignments in the local files mentioned are sometimes no longer correct. The files can be brought up to date with the hmc rescan command. If no HMC is specified as an argument, the information from all HMCs is queried and the local files are updated:

$ hmc rescan
hmc01:
   ms01(12F082W)
    > aix01
    > aix04
    > aix05
    > aix14
    > aix17
    > ms01-vio1
    > ms01-vio2
   ms02(12F083W)
    > aix03
    > aix08
…
$ 

However, you can also specify one or more HMCs as an argument. Then only the information for LPARs and managed systems of these HMCs will be updated:

$ hmc rescan ms02
hmc01:
   ms02(12F083W)
    > aix03
    > aix08
    > aix09
    > aix21
    > aix24
    > ms02-vio1
    > ms02-vio2
$

The update takes approximately 1-2 seconds per HMC.