Test network performance

This command test memory to memory copies over rsh (a low overhead protocol). This should be about all the throughput you are going to get from your network adapters:

export RSH_TEST_HOST=hostname
time dd if=/dev/zero count=1024000 bs=1k | rsh $RSH_TEST_HOST dd of=/dev/null

Tuning minfree and maxfree (free memory pages)

If a process has to wait for memory pages, system performance is impacted. The system keeps a pool of available pages just for this. To see if we need to adjust minfree and maxfree, first find out what they are set to now:

AIX 4

/usr/samples/kernel/vmtune

AIX 5

vmo -o minfree
vmo -o maxfree 

Then, run vmstat and watch the fre column. If the fre column reaches minfree, raise the minfree and maxfree parameters. If the fre colum is consistantly above maxfree, then no tuning is necessary.

AIX 4

/usr/samples/kernel/vmtune -f 120 -F 128

AIX 5

vmo -p -o minfree=120
vmo -p -o maxfree=128 

AIX 5.3+

vmo -p -o minfree=960
vmo -p -o maxfree=1088 

NOTE: Cerner recommends minfree = 120 * # CPUs and maxfree = minfree + ( 8 * # of CPUs) for AIX up to 5.3.

Find the PID associated with a connection

Sometimes you want to find a Process ID associated with network activity on your system. For example, you may be looking at the sockets in an ESTABLISHED state on your system and you see one that cannot be readily identified to a running process.

# netstat -Aan | grep EST
702f79f0 tcp4   0    0  192.168.1.113.3276 192.168.1.113.3277  ESTABLISHED

The remove socket command was designed to provide a means to clean up after an application that did not exit gracefully and left TCP sockets open without associated processes and file descriptors that used them. In development and testing environments, use of rmsock can save valuable time. The rmsock command will not remove a socket that still has a valid file descriptor, but instead returns the identity of the process owner. When we use the rmsock command on the same socket PCB address of 702f79f0, we get the following:

# rmsock 702f79f0 tcpcb

The socket 0x702f7800 is being held by process 8840 (snmpdv3ne). 

AIX Debug Install

If an installation or migration fails, you can run the install in “debug” mode. Boot from the CD as normal, select the console and language. Then type “911″. The screen should silently refresh without saying anything about an invalid selection. Now continue the install as normal. The output of the scripts the install process runs with show up on the screen. It’s sometimes a lot of data, but you can often see what’s wrong with the install this way.

Storage Pool SHOW commands

Show archives for a given Node within a Policy Set:

SHow Archives PolicySet NodeName

This command will list out all the files in a storage pool that are marked as damaged. To fix them, run an AUDIT VOL command.

SHow DAMAGED poolname

This command was added with TSM version 5.2.2. It will check out all possible destination storage pools for a given client node and tell you if this storage pool can support LAN-free backup and restore.

SHOW LANFREE nodeName storageAgent

Shows the status of the library and its drives:

SHow LIBrary

The fields are:

• busy=0 means the drive is not mounted or even acquired by TSM.
• busy=1 should reflect TSM using the drive (Query MOunt). But this could result from drive maintenance. Fix by trying ‘cfgmgr’ AIX command, or killing the lmcpd AIX process and then doing ‘cfgmgr’ or ‘/etc/lmcpd’.
• online=0 means the drive is “offline”. You can update a drive to be offline, in which case the polled flag will be 0.
• polled=1 means that TSM could not use the drive for one of three reasons:
  1. The drive is loaded with a Non-TSM volume (eg a cleaner cartridge, or a volume from the other TSM server)
  2. The drive is unavailable to the library manager (usually set this way by load/unload failures)
  3. The drive cannot be opened (some other application has it open, or there’s some connection problem, etc)
• polled= 1 means the server is polling the drive every 30 seconds to see when the above three conditions all clear (it also means that the online flag should be 0). When the conditions clear, it turns online back to 1 and the drive should now be available to be acquired.

Note that if no tape drive is currently available, TSM will wait rather than kill the client and administrative tasks.

Show all SPACEMGMT Files for node:

SHOW SPAce nodename filespace

Useful for displaying the states and attributes of defined storage pools.

SHOW SSPOOL

You use this command to get statistics from the last migration or backup stgpool process.

SHOW TRANSFERSTATS poolname

This command show the files stored for the node and filespace:

SHOW VERsions nodename filespace

For UNIX clients I’ve had to add namet=unicode. For example,

show versions hnaa * namet=unicode

Shows the volumes being used by a given Node. Does not show Copy Storage Pools. IBM intends to replace this with a similar, supported command.

SHow VOLUMEUSAGE nodename

Database and Log SHOW commands

SHOW BUFSTATS:

Use this command to see if you need to increase your database buffer pool size. An associated command is SHOW BUFV, but it is less obvious what the output means.

Example output is:

    Database Buffer Pool Statistics:

    Total Buffer Latch Requests:   184217213
    Times Scavenging Required:      1123642  0.61%
    Times Scavenging by Stealing:   1105210  0.60%
    Times Scavenging by Waiting:          0  0.00%
    Times Read Required:            1123574  0.61%
    Cache Hit Percentage:             99.39%

SHow BUFVars:

Shows database buffer pool global variables.

SHOW DBTXNT:

Use this command to displays the database transaction table.

Example output is:

    Open objects:
    name ->AS.SegmentsSS.PoolsSS.Pool.IdsAF.Clusters Valid=1, inRollback=0, endNTA=0, State=2,
    Index=10, LatchCount=0, SavePoint=0, TotLogRecs=0, TotLogBytes=0,
    UndoLogRecs=0, UndoLogBytes=0, LogReserve=0, PageReserve=0,
    Elapsed=346279 (secs), MinLsn=0.0.0, MaxLsn=0.0.0, LastLsn=0.0.0,
    UndoNextLsn=0.0.0, logWriter=False, backupTxn=False

This is showing that this transaction has 4 database tables open, that the transaction is valid, and that it is not writing log records.

SHOW DBV:

Displays database global attributes.

SHOW DBBACKUPVOLS:

Use this command to get details on the latest full and incremental database backup volumes.

SHOW LOGPINNED:

You can use this command if your logfile is running out of space. The oldest active record in the log is pinning the log. This command will tell you what task owns that oldest record. You could follow this up with SHOW LOGPINNED CANCEL which will cancel whatever is holding the pinned record. This is one of those ‘UPDATE’ SHOW commands that you need to use with extreme care, and preferably after advice from Tivoli. However, if your log is rapidly filling up, will you have time to make that support call? It would be best to investigate and test this command before you need to use it in an emergency. The command is only available in TSM version 5.1.7.0 or above.

SHOW LOGV:

You can use this command to display the recovery log global attributes, but it is less obvious what they all mean.

SHOW LOGstats:

Use this command to see statistics on log usage. An associated command is SHOW LOGRESET This command will RESET the log statistics back to 0.

Server SHOW commands

SHOW ASQUEUED:

If you have a client session or process stuck, it may be waiting for a drive. You can use this command to see if there are sessions queued waiting for mount points.

SHOW ASVOL:

If you are having problems with sessions or processes queued, or waiting for tape volumes, then this command will display the in-memory list of assigned volumes.

SHOW CONFIG:

This is one of the long running commands that produce lots of output. It actually issues a set of QUERY and SHOW commands then uses these to build a quite comprehensive picture of the state of the server. This command is worth running as a diagnostic data gathering exercise, to be analysed when free time permits.

SHow CSVars:

Shows client schedule variables and statistics.

SHOW DEVCLASS:

Is also useful if you have problems with drives. It displays the status of each device class, including the status of allocated drives.

SHow LVM:

Shows logical volume manager info: server disk volumes.

SHow LVMCOPYTABLE:

Shows the LVM database and recovery log copy table status.

SHow LVMVOLS:

Shows database and recovery log volume usage.

SHOW MP:

Useful for determining which volume is in-use by a given mount point and other attributes for the assigned mount points.

SHow PENDing:

Shows pending administrative and client schedules.

SHow TIME:

Shows the current server date and time.

SHow TXN:

Shows Transaction manager statistics.

Session SHOW commands

SHow INVObject 0 ObjectId:

Use this command to show an inventory object, reporting its nodename, filespace, management class, and more. This command can be useful if you get errors with objects.

SHOW LOCK:

If your TSM server is running very slow it is worth trying this command. A TSM server uses locks to serialise updates to prevent corruption. You use this command to see what resources are locked.

SHOW RESQUEUE:

The TSM server monitors resource usage and will cancel any resource users that are holding onto resources for too long. You use the SHOW RESQUEUE command to display the resource queue and it will display information about transactions, locks, and other resources.

SHOW SESSION:

Useful for diagnosing hangs or other general session problems while a session is still connected to the server. This is also useful in cases where a session is cancelled or terminated and still appears in QUERY SESSION.

SHOW TXNT:

You use this command to get information about active server transactions. Transactions are the low level operations that actually read or update the database. This command can be useful for diagnosing hangs or other transaction related problems, but the command produces a lot of output, and many of the fields are a bit obscure.

Windows Client SHOW commands

SHOW CACHE:

TSM uses Subfile backups to backup only changed portions of files over slow network links. TSM knows what parts of a file have changed, by storing checksum information in a cache file on the client. This command will display information about the subfile cache, if the client is configured to use subfile backup.

SHOW PLUGINS:

If you want to use extra capabilities like image backup, then they are provided by ?plug-ins?. You use this command to find out what plug-ins are available for this client.

SHOW SYSTEMOBJECT / SHOW SYSTEMSTATE:

You use these commands to find out what system facilities are installed, and which ones can be backed up with TSM. SYSTEMOBJECT is used forWindows 2000 and XP clients, and SYSTEMSTATE for Windows 2003 clients.

SYSTEMSERVICES:

For Windows 2003 clients, displays the SYSTEM SERVICES data that is available on this client. Useful to determine which SYSTEM SERVICES files are installed on this Windows client and those that could be backed up.

Client SHOW commands

SHOW CLUSTER:

Displays information about the disk mappings in a WindowsMicrosoft or a Netware Cluster.

SHOW Options:

Displays the active client options.

SHOW OPTTABLE:

You can configure a client so it can get its option settings from either the client option file or from the server. This command will tell you which one is in use for this client.

SHOW SEssion:

Displays capabilities that this client has for this connection to the server. The client and server report and negotiate the capabilities that each has when a session is started by a client to a server. This show command reports the capabilities available by this server and client.

SHOW TRACEFLAGS:

Use this to determine which trace options could be used for this client.

SHOW VERSION:

Use this command to find out what release and version of TSM is installed.