AIX

Has anyone run into issues creating a mksysb_resource via NIM?
We get the following messages

0042-001 nim: processing error encountered on "master":
0042-006 m_mkbosi: (From_Master) connect A remote host refused an
attempted connect operation.

This happens on the LPARs on the same frame between master and client.

Any ideas?

NIM works via some remote-execution facility, usually rsh. Find out what is blocking the rsh from the master on the client. Starting points are: /etc/inetd.conf, /.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc.. If you have a switch/router/whatever between master and client make sure it doesn't block the communication (protocol filter or something such).

Things should work fine if you are able to issue the following on the master and get a valid answer:

"rsh <client> date"

Ah, one more: nim works with port 1059 if i remember correctly, have a look if this is usable.

I hope this helps.

bakunin

Thanks for your answer Bakunin, but the problem was bigger than what you and I thought.
We have an Etherchannel setup on our P5-590's, and here's the answer from IBM support:

Unforunately, Etherchannel (and other multiple adapter protocols,
like VIPA, Virtual IP Addressing) is not supported with NIM.

NIM requires, when performing a network boot for a client, that
-all- network traffic occur between only -two- adapters: The NIM
primary network adapter and the client's configured network adapter
(for boot purposes).

Etherchannel attempts to "load balance" network traffic by distributing
the network traffic for the system among the multiple adapters it has
in its configuration. This means that a BOOTP request can come in
one of the Etherchannel network adapters, but the response to the
client goes out another adapter, and is ignored by the client,
because the response packet was send by a different adapter than
the adapter that received it.
This behaviour prevents NIM from performing network boots of clients.

The only recourse is to either remove the Etherchannel configuration
from the NIM master system, or separate a -dedicated- network
adapter for use by NIM -only-, such that only NIM traffic can go out
and be received by this adapter.

There is also an unsupported method of getting Etherchannel and
NIM to cooperate. You can set the Etherchannel device to
"netif_backup", with one adapter acting as the 'primary' network
adapter for the system, and the other second adapter acting as a
"Backup Adapter", so that all network traffic goes in and out of
the 'primary' adapter, and the 'backup' adapter is only on standby,
to take over if the 'primary' adapter fails. This method is
unsupported, because the Etherchannel failover to the backup
adapter could happen in the middle of a NIM network boot of a
client, and will cause the network boot to fail.

Oops. I could have told you so, bu i haven't thought about this possibility. Btw., the "unsupported method" works quite well in my environment: we installed an Etherchannel for redundancy on our main NIM server. We use it in primary/backup mode from the beginning as we use the NIM server mostly for installations and supposed that bootp wouldn't be too happy with this construction.

Thanks a lot for the explanation of the solution. I would appreciate if everybody would post follow-ups to his problems this way.

bakunin

bakunin,

Thanks for your input. I guess I'm not alone with this problem.

By the way, how did you configure Primary/backup method of etherchanneling the adapters? I am new to our environment here, and I don't have any specific instructions on doing this. I can call IBM, but you can save me a call if you hae instructions.

Thanks.

Paul