AIX 7.2 Archive - PowerCampus 01

This post shows how to download AIX installation ISO images from the IBM Entitled Systems Support website. A valid IBMid and a current IBM software maintenance agreement (SWMA) are required for the download. As an example we show the download of the AIX installation ISO images for AIX 7.2 TL5. However, ISO images for other AIX versions or other software, e.g. PowerHA, can also be downloaded in the same way.

AIX and other software can be downloaded from the IBM Entitled Systems Support website. The URL for the website is:

https://www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/ess

Click on “Log in” to log into IBM Entitled Systems Support (ESS)

In order to log in, you need a valid IBMid and a valid software maintenance contract. After clicking on the blue “Log in” button, a login mask appears.

Entitled Systems Support (ESS) Log in — Specify the IBMid and then click the “Continue” button.

After entering a valid IBMid and confirming with the “Continue” button, you will be asked for a password.

Entitled Systems Support (ESS) Password — After entering the password, log in with the “Log in” button.

After entering the password, the main page of Entitled Systems Support appears.

“My Entitled Software” should be selected to download software.

ESS My Entitled Software — To download AIX or other software, the “Software Downloads” link must be selected.

From the displayed selection of options, the “Software Downloads” link should be clicked.

ESS Software Downloads — Select category “AIX” and group “V7R2 (GA)” for AIX 7.2. Then click on the magnifying glass.

The software to be downloaded can be selected either by specifying the category, or the machine type, or by directly selecting a product. We show the variant “By category”, by selecting the category “AIX” and the desired version “V7R2 (GA)” for AIX 7.2.

ESS AIX 7.2 TL Support — To download a specific AIX 7.2 TL, “AIX 7.2 TL support” should be selected and then the selection should be confirmed with the “Continue” button.

From the list of available “AIX 7.2” products, “AIX 7.2 TL support” should be selected.

ESS AIX 7.2 TL5 — Select the AIX 7.2 TLs 05 and confirm with “Continue”.

From the list of available packages, the package for the desired TL (AIX 7.2 TL05) should be selected. Pressing the “Continue” button confirms the selection.

Before the software can finally be downloaded, IBM’s general terms and conditions must be confirmed.

ESS Software Downloads Terms and Conditions — The general terms and conditions must be confirmed here.

Next you have to select whether the download should be done via the browser or with the help of the download director. We have decided to download using a browser.

ESS Software Download method — We select download with the browser and confirm with “Continue”.

Next, the available images are displayed. We select the install images “AIX v7.2 Install DVD 1”, “AIX v7.2 Install DVD 2” and “AIX v7.2 Install flash”.

ESS Software Download Start — Start the download of the AIX 7.2 TL5 ISO images by clicking “AIX v7.2 Install DVD 1” and “AIX v7.2 Install DVD 2”.

The progress of the download can be followed via the browser:

ESS Software Download Progress — Download progress via the browser.

PowerHA, PowerVM or any other software can be downloaded in the same way via IBM Entitled Systems Support (ESS). However, a valid software maintenance contract for the corresponding software is always required.

As of AIX 7.2 TL4 and VIOS 3.1.1.10 there is a new attribute “label” for physical FC adapters. The administrator can set this attribute to any character string (maximum 255 characters). Even if the attribute is only informative, it can be extremely useful in PowerVM virtualization environments. If you have a large number of managed systems, it is not always clear to which FC fabric a certain FC port is connected. This can of course be looked up in the documentation of your systems, but it does involve a certain amount of effort. It is easier if you link this information directly with the FC adapters, which is exactly what the new “label” attribute allows in a simple way. On AIX:

# chdev -l fcs0 -U -a label="Fabric_1"
fcs0 changed
# lsattr -El fcs0 -a label -F value
Fabric_1
#

On virtual I/O servers, the attribute can also be set using the padmin account:

/home/padmin> chdev -dev fcs1 -attr label="Fabric_2" -perm
fcs1 changed
/home/padmin> lsdev -dev fcs1 -attr label                
value

Fabric_2
/home/padmin>

The attribute is also defined for older FC adapters.

If the “label” attribute is consistently used, it is always possible to determine online for each FC adapter to which fabric the adapter is connected to. This information only needs to be stored once for each FC adapter.

(Note: The “label” attribute is not implemented for AIX 7.1, at least not until 7.1 TL5 SP6.)

Tag: AIX 7.2

Download AIX ISO images from IBM

The “label” Attribute for FC Adapters