The “ms show” command can be used to display basic information about managed systems, such as the serial number and the hardware model. The associated HMCs are also displayed:

ms [-h <hmc>] show [<ms> …]
-h <hmc> # Hardware Management Console

In the simplest case, the command is called without arguments; all managed systems known to the LPAR-Tool are displayed:

$ ms show
NAME  SERIAL_NUM  TYPE_MODEL  HMCS         MODEL_NAME
ms01  12F082W     8284-22A    hmc01,hmc02  IBM Power System S822
ms02  12F083W     8284-22A    hmc01,hmc02  IBM Power System S822
ms03  879D80E     9009-22A    hmc01,hmc02  IBM Power System S922
ms04  879D809     9009-22A    hmc01,hmc02  IBM Power System S922
ms05  87C4803     9009-22G    hmc01,hmc02  IBM Power System S922
ms06  87C480C     9009-22G    hmc01,hmc02  IBM Power System S922
…
$

However, one or more managed systems can also be specified as an argument. The output is then limited to these managed systems:

$ ms show ms02 ms03 ms04
NAME  SERIAL_NUM  TYPE_MODEL  HMCS         MODEL_NAME
ms02  12F083W     8284-22A    hmc01,hmc02  IBM Power System S822
ms03  879D80E     9009-22A    hmc01,hmc02  IBM Power System S922
ms04  879D809     9009-22A    hmc01,hmc02  IBM Power System S922
$

Another option to display only part of the managed systems is to specify an HMC with the “-h” option. Only managed systems that are managed by the specified HMC are then displayed:

$ ms -h hmc03 show
NAME  SERIAL_NUM  TYPE_MODEL  HMCS         MODEL_NAME
ms11  31D58AW     8408-44E    hmc03,hmc04  IBM Power System E850C
ms12  68AFB5X     9040-MR9    hmc03,hmc04  IBM Power System E950
ms13  68B163W     8408-44E    hmc03,hmc04  IBM Power System E850C
…
$

The data displayed comes from the ms.list file in the user’s home directory. The data is not queried live using the HMCs! Normally the data is correct, as the serial number and model do not change. However, if a managed system was added or removed by another user, or another tool was used for this purpose (HMC GUI, HMC CLI, PowerVC), then the information in the ms.list file does not correspond to reality. However, the data can be updated at any time using the hmc rescan command.