RE: Joe's V5R1 upgrade -- MIDRANGE-L

IIRC from the past: 

>there is a copy of the SLIC on both sides.
>PTFs for 5722999 apply to the SLIC
>SLIC on the A side has only permanently applied PTFs and the
>one on the B side includes also temporarily applied PTFs.

Yes, yes, and yes.

>My other current belief is that temporary PTFs for the operating system and
>licensed programs are "virtual", in that they or either enabled or not
based
>on which side you IPL from.

No. There is no way to boot the os w/o the temp applied PTFs. When a PTF is
loaded the "new" program is extracted from the SAVF and named QPZxxxx (or
something like that). When an immed ptf is applied the "old" program is
renamed to QPZyyyy and the QPZxxx is renamed to the correct program name.
Delayed PTFs go through the same process at IPL. 

The difference between temp and perm apply is whether the "old" replaced
program is kept around. If it is (temp) then you can remove the PTF by
reversing the rename process[1]. If it isn't (perm) there is no way to
remove the PTF because the old program isn't around anymore.

I'd imagine LIC PTFs go through the same process but you need two sides (two
copies) because the programs you need to patch are alreay in use by the time
you get to the point of the IPL that you can patch them. With two copies you
can always patch the other side. If you recall back to V1Rx days you'd do
IPLs to A then B then A then B then... When applying PTFs. The swap of sides
was a great feature.

-Walden

[1] Oversimplified version obviously -- there are pre and post install
scripts, dependencies, etc. But you get the idea.

------------
Walden H Leverich III
President
Tech Software
(516) 627-3800 x11
(208) 692-3308 eFax
WaldenL@TechSoftInc.com
http://www.TechSoftInc.com 

Quiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
(Whatever is said in Latin seems profound.)
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Pluta [mailto:joepluta@PlutaBrothers.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 12:44 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: Joe's V5R1 upgrade


Wow.

This is getting to be quite the saga.

I can IPL to side A.  Side A says I'm up to C2134510, which is a pretty good
release.  But side B will not boot, I consistently get a SRCB6000910.  On
Al's advice, I've been trying to enter an incident, but we're having
problems there (I've been directed to use the Internet to purchase my
incident, but the IBM web catalog store is not working).

Basically, I just want to de-spin the B side.  Scott Ingvaldson says it can
be done by just going through and "unapplying" PTFs:

  APYPTF LICPGM(5722SS1) DELAYED(*NO) IPLAPY(*NO) APYREQ(*NO)

Doing that for every licensed program may force the B-side to relink
himself.  The problem is whether or not this will work when IPL'd to the A
side.  Foer a short period I was beginning to understand which parts of the
A side and B side were physical, and which were virtual, but now I'm not so
sure.

My current belief is that there is a copy of the SLIC on both sides.  It is
also my belief that PTFs for 5722999 apply to the SLIC.  It is further my
belief that the SLIC on the A side has only permanently applied PTFs and the
one on the B side includes also temporarily applied PTFs.

My other current belief is that temporary PTFs for the operating system and
licensed programs are "virtual", in that they or either enabled or not based
on which side you IPL from.  So, there aren't two physical copies of the
operating system; there is a base with permanent PTFs applied which is
loaded when you start the machine, and then the temporary PTFs are somehow
incorporated in at load time if you're running from the B side.

If that's the case, I may be able to remove the PTFs (using the APYPTF
command above) even though I'm on the A side, and then MAYBE that will force
the B side to attempt to rerun the link/loader.

Unfortunately, that's a WHOLE LOT of assumptions.  If the A side weren't
working, I might be tempted to try it, but since the A side is active, I am
very reluctant to run ANY command that has the word "PTF" in it.  Instead
I'm putting in a call to IBM.

Of course, that means buying an incident, and that's a whole DIFFERENT
story.  The web catalog store is broken right now (evidently all the virtual
employees are on virtual break) and so instead I have to go through the
manual procedure of receiving a contract, signing it, faxing it back, and
then finally hopefully getting to talk to a technical person.

I will say this; the IBM personnel are being very helpful.  I have found
over the last several weeks that (unlike certain times in IBM's past) it's
definitely not the personnel, it's the processes.  Any issues in service or
support are primarily due to management, not the folks in the trenches.

Joe

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