I finally got PowerVP installed in my lab environment today. As part of the server agent installation process I needed to install the latest service pack (SP1) for PowerVP. After I downloaded the service pack from IBM Fix Central, I tried to run the install script from the command line on my AIX partition. It failed everytime I ran it, no matter what options I supplied the installer script!
[root@gibbo]/tmp/cg # ./PowerVP.bin.SP1 –i Silent
Preparing to install...
Extracting the installation resources from the installer archive...
Configuring the installer for this system's environment...
Launching installer...
Graphical installers are not supported by the VM. The console mode will be used instead...
===============================================================================
Choose Locale...
----------------
1- Bahasa Indonesia
2- Català
3- Dansk
4- Deutsch
->5- English
6- Español
7- Euskara
8- Français
9- Français (Canada)
10- Italiano
11- Nederlands
12- Norsk
13- Português
14- Português (Brasil)
15- Suomi
16- Svenska
CHOOSE LOCALE BY NUMBER:
=======================================================
Installer User Interface Mode Not Supported
The installer cannot run in this UI mode. To specify the interface mode, use the -i command-line option, followed by the UI mode identifier. The valid UI modes identifiers are GUI, Console, and Silent.
The only way I could get the SP installed was to use the GUI installer. I installed VNC server on my AIX partition, connected to the VNC server and then ran the installer script (as shown in the following screenshots). This worked fine.
The update fileset was extracted to the following location:
[root@gibbo]/IBM/PowerVP/PowerVP_Installation/PowerVP_Agent_Installation_Instructions/AIX # ls -ltr
total 60328
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root system 30171648 Nov 6 11:28 powervp.1.1.0.0.bff
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root system 699392 Dec 6 08:52 powervp.1.1.0.1.bff
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root system 1185 Dec 9 08:53 README_Fixpack.html
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root system 2001 Feb 17 14:19 README.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 849 Feb 17 15:03 .toc
As instructed in the fixpack readme, I stopped the PowerVP processes before installing the service pack. I also unloaded the associated kernel extension, just in case.
# ps -ef | grep -i powervp
root 4128956 6291676 0 14:56:23 - 0:00 /opt/ibm/powervp/syslet
root 6291676 1 0 14:56:23 - 0:00 /bin/ksh /opt/ibm/powervp/PowerVP.sh
[root@gibbo]/ # kill 4128956 6291676
[root@gibbo]/ # cat /opt/ibm/powervp/PowerVP.sh
#!/bin/ksh
/opt/ibm/powervp/loadkex
/opt/ibm/powervp/syslet
/opt/ibm/powervp/unloadkex
Exit
[root@gibbo]/ # /opt/ibm/powervp/unloadkex
Then I installed the update (with smitty update_all).
COMMAND STATUS
Command: OK stdout: yes stderr: no
Before command completion, additional instructions may appear below.
[MORE...40]
powervp.rte 1.1.0.1
Finished processing all filesets. (Total time: 1 secs).
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Pre-commit Verification...
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Verifying requisites...done
Results...
SUCCESSES
---------
Filesets listed in this section passed pre-commit verification
and will be committed.
Selected Filesets
-----------------
powervp.rte 1.1.0.1 # PowerVP Fixpack for AIX
<< End of Success Section >>
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Committing Software...
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
installp: COMMITTING software for:
powervp.rte 1.1.0.1
Finished processing all filesets. (Total time: 1 secs).
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Summaries:
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Installation Summary
--------------------
Name Level Part Event Result
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
powervp.rte 1.1.0.1 USR APPLY SUCCESS
powervp.rte 1.1.0.1 USR COMMIT SUCCESS
[root@gibbo]/ # lslpp -l powervp.rte
Fileset Level State Description
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Path: /usr/lib/objrepos
powervp.rte 1.1.0.1 COMMITTED PowerVP Fixpack for AIX
Path: /etc/objrepos
powervp.rte 1.1.0.0 COMMITTED PowerVP for AIX
Next, I restarted the PowerVP agent.
[root@gibbo]/ # ps ax |grep powervp
[root@gibbo]/ # /etc/rc.d/rc2.d/SPowerVP
[root@gibbo]/ # ps ax |grep powervp
4128966 pts/0 A 0:00 /opt/ibm/powervp/syslet
9109542 pts/0 A 0:00 /bin/ksh /opt/ibm/powervp/PowerVP.sh
At the same time, I also updated the PowerVP GUI on my laptop to the latest service pack as well.
After that, I was good to go and PowerVP started up fine.
The PowerVP log file will tell you if the agent has started.
[root@gibbo]/var/log # cat powervp.log
2014-02-17 17:02:46.750 MSG0080: 10.2.55.99 - Running as the system level agent.
2014-02-17 17:02:47.860 MSG0082: Agent running, waiting for clients to request data.
By the way, if you try to start the PowerVP server agent on a system that isn't at the correct fimrware level, then you'll find the following message in /var/log/powervp.log:
# cat powervp.log
2014-02-14 15:28:01.844 Error - MSG0047: MSG0205: System does not support the required interfaces. Firmware version 7.7 or greater is required.. [syslet.C:6090]