Rebooting AIX on RS6000

Clive James

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Dec 4, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/4/97

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Hi all,

I've just been "promoted" as RS6000 system administrator due to a colleague
leaving without giving any notice. However, I have no experience of AIX,
although limited experience of others UNIX variants (e.g., ICL SVR4). I'm
due to go on a AIX course in January, but until then I'm on my own. Here's
my problem.

The system is running extremely slow at the moment, and I've been advised
that the previous administrator would reboot the system, which would improve
performance (for a while!).

I know this is not the solution to performance problems, but it will
apparently get the system going at a reasonable speed.

Under previous versions of UNIX, I would issue the shutdown command.

Does this apply to AIX? Can I use this command. I tried 'man shutdowwn', but
found no entry.

Help!

TIA

Clive

John Crothers

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Dec 4, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/4/97

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Hi,

in AIX 4.2.1:

# /usr/sbin/shutdown -?

This will give you a list of valid options.

For example:

# /usr/sbin/shutdown -F

This will immediately invoke a "fast" (but safe) shutdown, un-mounting
filesystems, killing processes gracefully and shutting off the network
interfaces. Once you see the "Halt completed" message, it is safe to
power off the box.

# /usr/sbin/shutdown -r +5 Message_of_your_choice

This will cause the message of your choice to be written to every
terminal/pty on the system and start the shutdown in 5 minutes from the
time you issue the command. The -r flag causes the system to re-boot.

I'll email you a copy of the man page.

Hope this helps

John Crothers
UNIX admin
State St Bank & Trust
Boston USA

kruser

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Dec 5, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/5/97

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There are many ways to shutdown

#shutdown -Fr which will reboot
#shutdown -F which will shutdown
#sync;sync;reboot
#sync;sync;halt

these are a few
--
Frank Kruse
CMVC Operations
IBM Austin Phone: 838-0068

Matt Casters

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Dec 5, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/5/97

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kruser wrote:
>
> Clive James wrote:
> >
[snip]

> > Under previous versions of UNIX, I would issue the shutdown command.
> >
> > Does this apply to AIX? Can I use this command. I tried 'man shutdowwn', but
> > found no entry.
> >

> There are many ways to shutdown
>
> #shutdown -Fr which will reboot
> #shutdown -F which will shutdown
> #sync;sync;reboot
> #sync;sync;halt
>
> these are a few
> --
> Frank Kruse
> CMVC Operations
> IBM Austin Phone: 838-0068

Well, I would not advice

#sync;sync;halt

You might win some time, but stand a fair chance of losing it again when
your filesystem(s) corrupts. I would certainly not do this with a heavy
load
on the system.

Didn't halt disapear in AIX 4 ?

All the best,

--
Matt Casters <matt.c...@volvo.be> MemodID: VEDA.TN91217
Unix System Administrator
Volvo Data Belgium, Eksaarderijweg 188, 9041 Oostakker
Tel: +32-9/255.60.76 (temp.) FAX: +32-9/255.60.83

Larry Sybrandt

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Dec 5, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/5/97

to Clive James

When you get settled in, get the man pages installed. Not installed by
default.
Cheers

Clive James wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I've just been "promoted" as RS6000 system administrator due to a colleague
> leaving without giving any notice. However, I have no experience of AIX,
> although limited experience of others UNIX variants (e.g., ICL SVR4). I'm
> due to go on a AIX course in January, but until then I'm on my own. Here's
> my problem.
>
> The system is running extremely slow at the moment, and I've been advised
> that the previous administrator would reboot the system, which would improve
> performance (for a while!).
>
> I know this is not the solution to performance problems, but it will
> apparently get the system going at a reasonable speed.
>

> Under previous versions of UNIX, I would issue the shutdown command.
>
> Does this apply to AIX? Can I use this command. I tried 'man shutdowwn', but
> found no entry.
>

> Help!
>
> TIA
>
> Clive

--
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Larry Sybrandt
Senior Unix System Administrator
Lotus Development
lsy...@lotus.ssw.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Fred L. Johnson

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Dec 5, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/5/97

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No, halt is alive and well on my 4.3 system.

The sync;sync;...halt sequence (the number of syncs varies depending on
who is typing...) is used very frequently here in Austin during code
development on what we call our "victim" machines. I have never lost
data doing this.

BUT, I don't know of anyone here who does that sequence regularly on
their office machine. ;-) So the vast majority of the time you can
get away with syncing and halting, but if the data is important to you
it is safer to do a shutdown.
--
/| Fred L. Johnson, P.E. joh...@austin.ibm.com |\
\| Manager, AIX Kernel Bringup phone: (512) 838-3676 |/

Hanko van Giessen

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Dec 6, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/6/97

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Clive James wrote:

>
> The system is running extremely slow at the moment, and I've been advised
> that the previous administrator would reboot the system, which would improve
> performance (for a while!).
>
> I know this is not the solution to performance problems, but it will
> apparently get the system going at a reasonable speed.
>

Clive,

You have several commands that will reboot your system, but that will
not resolve your performance problem. I will advise you to monitor
your memory and CPU resources in order to determine the performance
problems.

Coomands to use are:

vmstat
iostat
svmon

Check the usage when you have installed your man pages.

Good luck.

Rick Poleshuck

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Dec 6, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/6/97

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Hanko van Giessen wrote:

You might also want to snarf a copy of the 'monitor' product.