Hardware management commands in AIX operating system

Device Management commands can be used to manage the different hardware devices that are available in AIX. Some of the devices that you can manage include Logical Volume Manager, file systems, tape library, tape drives, and printers.

Most Common AIX Device Management Commands

• List all devices on a system

                lsdev

• Install devices for attached peripherals  

               cfgmgr –v

• List all disk devices on a system

              lsdev -Cc disk

• List all customized (existing) device classes (-P for complete list)

              lsdev -C -r class

• Remove hdisk5

              rmdev -dl hdisk5

• Get device address of hdisk1

             getconf DISK DEVNAME hdisk1 ⇐or⇒ bootinfo -o hdisk1

• Get the size (in MB) of hdisk1

              getconf DISK SIZE /dev/hdisk1 ⇐or⇒ bootinfo -s hdisk1

• List all disks belonging to scsi0

             lsdev -Cc disk -p scsi0

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• Find the slot of a PCI Ethernet adapter

               lsslot -c pci -l ent0

• Find the (virtual) location of an Ethernet adapter

              lscfg -l ent1

• Find the location codes of all devices in the system

                lscfg

• List all MPIO paths for hdisk0

                lspath -l hdisk0

• Find the WWN of the fcs0 HBA adapter

                 lscfg -vl fcs0 | grep Network

• Temporarily change console output to /console.out

                 swcons /console.out → (Use swcons to change back.) 

• Get statistics and extended information on fcs0

                  fcstat fcs0

• Change port type of HBA (This may vary by HBA vendor)

               rmdev -d -l fcnet0
               rmdev -d -l fscsi0
               chdev -l fcs0 -a link type=pt2pt cfgmgr

• Mirroring rootvg to hdisk1

                 extendvg rootvg hdisk1
                 mirrorvg rootvg
                 bosboot -ad hdisk0
                 bosboot -ad hdisk1
                 bootlist -m normal hdisk0 hdisk1

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• Mount a CD/DVD ROM to /mnt

                  mount -rv cdrfs /dev/cd0 /mnt → (for a CD) 
                  mount -v udfs -o ro /dev/cd0 /mnt → (for a DVD)
Note the two different types of read-only flags. Either is Ok.

• Create a VG, LV, and FS, mirror, and create mirrored LV

                  mkvg -s 256 -y datavg hdisk1 (PP size is 1/4 Gig) 
                  mklv -t jfs2log -y dataloglv datavg 1
                  logform /dev/dataloglv
                  mklv -t jfs2 -y data01lv datavg 8 → (2 Gig LV) 
                  crfs -v jfs2 -d data01lv -m /data01 -A yes 
                  extendvg datavg hdisk2
                  mklvcopy dataloglv 2 → (Note use of mirrorvg in next example) 
                  mklvcopy data01lv 2
                  syncvg -v datavg
                  lsvg -l datavg will now list 2 PPs for every LP
                  mklv -c 2 -t jfs2 -y data02lv datavg 8 → (2 Gig LV) 
                  crfs -v jfs2 -d data02lv -m /data02 -A yes
                  mount -a

• Move a VG from hdisk1 to hdisk2

                  extendvg datavg hdisk2
                  mirrorvg datavg hdisk2

                 Wait for mirrors to synchronize

                unmirrorvg datavg hdisk1 
                reducevg datavg hdisk1

• Find the free space on PV hdisk1

                 lspv hdisk1 → (Look for “FREE PPs”)