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Chris Gibson

Contributor

Chris Gibson is an AIX and PowerVM specialist located in Melbourne, Australia. He is an IBM Champion for Power Systems, IBM CATE (Power Systems and AIX), a technical editor, and a co-author of several IBM Redbooks publications.

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Articles

AIX Virtual Fibre Channel Enhancement

Chris Gibson

February 8, 2024

A new virtual Fibre Channel (VFC) client adapter enhancement was included with the release of AIX 7.3 Technology Level 2 Service Pack 1 (November 2023). A new command, called vfcstat, was introduced. This allows administrators to access information for VFC adapters, such as statistics, status and activities. New vfcstat Command Prior to this command, administrators […]

Articles

AIX SR-IOV VF and Cisco CDP

Chris Gibson

November 11, 2023

Yesterday, IBM released Technology Level (TL) 2 for AIX 7.3. With TL2, a new capability is delivered for AIX systems using native Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) adapters (logical ports). With this update AIX administrators can now display information for Cisco network devices (switches) that are directly connected to their AIX logical partition (LPAR). This […]

Articles

Preparing a VIOS for Maintenance Using the HMC

Chris Gibson

October 17, 2023

Did you know that, starting with Hardware Management Console (HMC) V9.2.950.0 and later, you can use the HMC user interface (UI) to prepare a Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) for maintenance on your IBM Power server? If this interests you, please read on to find out how.   The VIOS is considered an appliance or (like) […]

Articles

Configuring Hybrid Network Virtualization for AIX

Chris Gibson

May 26, 2023

An overview and description of Hybrid Network Virtualization—or HNV, as it is more commonly known—can be found in this blog written by Chuck Graham, the lead IBM architect for SR-IOV. It’s an excellent blog, which I highly recommend you read before attempting to configure HNV in your environment. As described in the blog, HNV was […]

Articles

A Look at the Latest AIX 7.3 Enhancements

Chris Gibson

December 22, 2022

In December 2022, AIX 7.3 Technology Level (TL) 1 became available. Many new features and functions were delivered with this TL. You can find the official list of announcements and “what’s new” information at the following links: IBM AIX 7.3 TL1, IBM AIX 7.2 TL5, IBM AIX 7 Standard Edition, IBM AIX 7 Enterprise Edition […]

Articles

Filtering IP Addresses With AIX IPSec

Chris Gibson

May 10, 2022

I want to deny IP address 8.211.1.243 from accessing my AIX system (for inbound connections).   The first step is to enable IPSec on the AIX. This example is for ipsec_v4. # smit ipsec4 --> Start/Stop IP Security --> Start IP Security Start IP Security [Now and After Reboot] + Deny All Non_Secure IP Packets […]

Articles

How to Check NPIV Virtual Fibre Channel Adapter Mapping on AIX

Chris Gibson

October 21, 2021

Starting with AIX 7.2 TL5 SP3 (and VIOS 3.1.3.00), AIX/Power System administrators can use an alternative to kdb for viewing VIOS "identifying info" from client AIX LPARs. For example:   # cat /proc/sys/adapter/fc/fcs0/hostinfo fcs0 VFC client adapter name : fcs0 Host partition name (VIOS) : vio1 VFC host adapter name : vfchost0 VFC host adapter […]

Articles

Installing an ifix With AIX Live Update

Chris Gibson

September 1, 2021

I recently received a notification that a new AIX security ifix had been released and was available for the AIX kernel.    The fix addressed the following vulnerability: "IBM AIX could allow a non-privileged local user to exploit a vulnerability in the kernel to gain root privileges – CVSS Base score: 8.4."    I wanted […]

Articles

AIX 7.2 OpenSSH Is Now HW GZIP Enabled!

Chris Gibson

July 28, 2021

The latest version of OpenSSH for AIX 7.2 now supports POWER9 HW GZIP! The requirements for this new capability are as follows: Processor mode: Power9 (instead of Power9_Base)* AIX Level: 7.2 TL 4 and above* zlibNX: 7.2.4.0 NX accelerated zlib compression library* OpenSSH version: 8.1.102.2102 and above* OpenSSL version: 1.0.2.2100 and above * ssh commands (like ssh, scp etc) should […]

Articles

Creating Bootable AIX OVA Images

Chris Gibson

February 2, 2021

A new command is included with Technology Level 5 for AIX 7.2 which will allow AIX administrators to create an Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) package. This utility will enable admins to capture a bootable OVA image of their AIX systems rootvg. This OVA package can then either be imported into PowerVC for automated VM deployment […]