AIX

Hi All, Just loaded AIX 6.1 and then got Firefox running on the workstation. To test out I wanted to download some small files from 'Perlz', and during this I'm told there's not enough room in the Downloads folder. What do I do to resize folders from the default and generally move memory around? In HP UX and Solaris I seem to remember doing this at the format disk stage with the installer. AIX seems different that way.
Thanks
P.S. Can anyone recommend a good book on AIX 6.1 installation and use? And a book that deals with problems that happen against the will of the programmers and manual writers.

1. You have to understand, in which "folder" there is not enough space. Every "folder" has some path. It can be e.g. /home/user/Downloads.

2. After you have found the path, you can check, if it is really a problem with a space in the filesystem. You can do it in easy way - df -g /your/own/path. For example:

Code:

# df -g /home/user/Downloads
Filesystem    GB blocks      Free %Used    Iused %Iused Mounted on
/dev/hd1           6.00      3.07   49%      132     1% /home

Paste the output of the command above to the forum. From the command above you see:
All the parameters are required in the following steps.


If you have more then enough space on the filesystem, but you still can't create file, you have problem somewhere else.


3. If you don't have enough space in the filesystem, you usually can expand it. But first you have to find out, if you have enough space on your hard drives. All filesystems lay in volume groups. You can find a volume group, where your filesystem lays, using the following command:

Code:

# getlvodm -b $(getlvodm -l hd1)
rootvg

hd1 here is the filesystem device from the output of df -g - /dev/hd1.


4. The usual way to look if you have enough space in the volume group is to use lsvg. For example:

Code:

# lsvg rootvg
VOLUME GROUP:       rootvg                   VG IDENTIFIER:  000252f30000d60000000139a72af0ba
VG STATE:           active                   PP SIZE:        128 megabyte(s)
VG PERMISSION:      read/write               TOTAL PPs:      546 (69888 megabytes)
MAX LVs:            256                      FREE PPs:       195 (24960 megabytes)
LVs:                14                       USED PPs:       351 (44928 megabytes)
OPEN LVs:           13                       QUORUM:         2 (Enabled)
TOTAL PVs:          1                        VG DESCRIPTORS: 2
STALE PVs:          0                        STALE PPs:      0
ACTIVE PVs:         1                        AUTO ON:        yes
MAX PPs per VG:     32512
MAX PPs per PV:     1016                     MAX PVs:        32
LTG size (Dynamic): 256 kilobyte(s)          AUTO SYNC:      no
HOT SPARE:          no                       BB POLICY:      relocatable
PV RESTRICTION:     none                     INFINITE RETRY: no
DISK BLOCK SIZE:    512                      CRITICAL VG:    no

rootvg in this case is from the output in the step 3.


5. As you can see in this example, the volume group has more than 20 GB free. It means that you can expand the filesystem by 20 GB. But I would suggest always to leave some spare capacity in a volume group. Let's say you want to add another 15GB to your filesystem. You get mountpoint from the step 2 - in our example it is /home, and execute the following command:

Code:

# chfs -a size=+15G /home
Filesystem size changed to 44040192

Please note plus sign after =. You have to be root or have similar authorizations to execute the command.



After that you can check, if the filesystem was expanded:

Code:

# df -g /home
Filesystem    GB blocks      Free %Used    Iused %Iused Mounted on
/dev/hd1          21.00     18.06   14%      132     1% /home

As a side note. There can be multiple different situations, then you can't write in the filesystem or even expand it, disregard of the free space in it. This is just a short intro, how to expand filesystems, not a full set of documentation and all possible troubleshooting techniques. If you have a problem, try always to be as specific as you can, noting all the commands you've executed and their output.

Hi agent.kgb,
thanks for your help your instructions worked great for my /home folder :-) I tried it on my /Downloads folder which is on hd4 and I got an error. Can you tell me the meaning of this error message I received please:-

Code:

chfs: 0506-915 No record matching /Downloads was found in /etc/filesystems.

I got the error message from using:-

Code:

chfs -a size=+3G /Downloads

I've now changed to /Home/Downloads which is more Linux like.

With the various allocated memory sizes for various System folders in root, would I have to expand any of them from the 'default' would you imagine, as I start installing software?
Thanks

While /Home/Downloads may be more linux like, /Home is not /home - so you are putting these in the / (aka root) filesystem.

Code:

lsvg -l rootvg

hd4 is /
hd1 is /home

etc.

And, my congratulations on getting firefox to run on AIX. I have an ancient 43P-140 (AIX 5.1) that I have firefox installed on - for emergencies in my basement with hardware that needs FF 1.0.7 (or something like that). But, generally, I do not know many people using AIX for browsing the web

I do want to mention that I have an alternate repository - and if you are wishing to play with python on AIX I would welcome your comments on my packaging (no additional RPM needed - at all!) - and I have python-3.4 and python-3.5 working on AIX 5.3 TL7 and later.

I call my repository 'AIXTOOLS'. See about python via: python - AIXTOOLS

Enjoy AIX!