Changing the Maunufacturing Default Configuration (MDC) 2

[Edward1982]

Is there anyway to set the MDC to false without rebooting the AIX 5.3 Power5 server? We've added 20 servers to our new HMC. Currently, we cant open a Vterm (terminal window) on 15 of the servers. The fix, which will allow us to open a Vterm on a server connected to the HMC, is to have the MDC set to false. All 20 are production boxes. I'd rather not take all the servers down, but I do realize it might be the only way to fix it. Any ideas?

 

[sbrews]

Were the servers built with a local terminal and added to the HMC later? If so, this is the procedure we had to use (from IBM) to get the console (vterms) to open on the hosts:

 - Boot into maintenance mode

 - List all vty's on system
 # lsdev -Cc vty
 - Delete all vty's from ODM
 # odmdelete -q name=vty0 -o CuDv
 # odmdelete -q name=vty1 -o CuDv
 ...

 - List all vsa's on system
 # lsdev -Cc adapter | grep vsa
 - Delete all vsa's from ODM
 # odmdelete -q name=vsa0 -o CuDv
 # odmdelete -q name=vsa1 -o CuDv

 - Delete console entry from ODM
 # odmdelete -q attribute=syscons -o CuAt

 - Look for an "install assist" entry in /etc/inittab, if it
 exists, comment it out (use colon as comment sign)

 - Run bosboot to update boot image; followed by sync
 # bosboot -ad /dev/ipldevice
 # sync

 - Boot partition into SMS mode and select the console
 - Boot partition in normal mode

 See if console works better now.

and as you can see from the above, a reboot is required.


Add a little color to your PUTTY terminal: faq52-6627

 

[DukeSSD]

sbrews, sounds a little extreme!

But (I'm sure you should never start a sentence, let alone a paragraph, with but): yes, there is no way to get a system out of MDC without an OS / partition reboot AFAIK because you need to reboot to pick up the new partition profile and this is the only way the OS will pick up the new HMC virtual console device instead of the non-HMC serial / LFT device.

If you activate the single partition / full system partition after HMC connection from the HMC you "should" get a prompt to take it out of MDC and then the partition "should" reconfigure the HMC as the console instead of the serial port - but I understand this is heavily firmware level and OS level dependent and all a bit random in terms of the outcome. Booting to SMS and setting the console there is also a VERY good idea - make sure you can connect via the network if you end up with defined tty devices when the old console goes offline and the new HMC vty configures so you can reconfigure them...

Hey, AIX consoles have always been a laugh, why would IBM change that now!

 

[Edward1982]

Thanks for the info. I was assuming I had to reboot these boxes, but hoping there was a slim chance that I didn’t have to. Oh well, thanks again!!