Although most installation images are not very large, “only” a few GB, they still take up a lot of space on the HMC’s hard drive. The /extra file system in which the images are saved is not very generously dimensioned at just under 20 GB. Therefore, an installation image should be deleted if possible when it is no longer needed.

For example, after upgrading all virtual I/O servers to version 4.1, an installation image for version 3.1.x is no longer needed:

LPAR-Tool
$ hmc lsviosimg hmc01
NAME          SIZE     IMAGE_FILES
VIOS_4.1.0.0  3487.55  dvdimage.v1.iso
VIOS_3.1.4.20 5985.77  dvdimage.v2.iso,dvdimage.v1.iso
$ 
HMC-CLI
hscroot@hmc01:~> lsviosimg
name=VIOS_4.1.0.0,size=3487.55,image_files=dvdimage.v1.iso
name=VIOS_3.1.4.20,size=5985.77,image_files=dvdimage.v2.iso,dvdimage.v1.iso
hscroot@hmc01:~>

The image for version 3.1.4.20 could be deleted to make space for newer installation images. An image can be removed from the HMC hard drive using the command “hmc rmviosimg“:

LPAR-Tool
$ hmc rmviosimg hmc01 VIOS_3.1.4.20
$
HMC-CLI
hscroot@hmc01:~> rmviosimg -n VIOS_3.1.4.20
hscroot@hmc01:~>