Actually, as Simon Cowel says on occasion, I got that wrong. 
L2cache0 I see as "available" on a proper machine with such cache using "lsdev -C".
If your box genuinely requires software to be installed for it, then I would expect
the device not to be "available" but "defined".  If it is "defined", it's not in use,
forget about it.  If it's available, it's in use and will make no difference whatever
I expect.

It is not usual to see the level 2 cache configured as a device - proc0,1,... for the processors is as far as it usually goes,
the cache is being used seamlessly.

Normally tape drives are configured with hardware compression enabled.  That can be disabled with "smit chgtpe" as a rule.
It's also possible to use the dot number extensions to the device file to call on attributes of a tape drive - although not compression as such, just density (i.e. different versions of tape formats as in DDS2, 3, 4 etc).  From "man rmt":

Special File Name Rewind-on-Close Retension-on-Open Bytes per Inch 
/dev/rmt* Yes No Density setting #1                                 
/dev/rmt*.1 No No Density setting #1                               
/dev/rmt*.2 Yes Yes Density setting #1                             
/dev/rmt*.3 No Yes Density setting #1                               
/dev/rmt*.4 Yes No Density setting #2                               
/dev/rmt*.5 No No Density setting #2                               
/dev/rmt*.6 Yes Yes Density setting #2                             
/dev/rmt*.7 No Yes Density setting #2   

 1. The values of density setting #1 and density setting #2 come from tape     
    drive attributes that can be set using SMIT. Typically density setting #1 
    is set to the highest possible density for the tape drive while density   
    setting #2 is set to a lower density. However, density settings are not   
    required to follow this pattern.                                           
 2. The density value (bytes per inch) is ignored when using a magnetic tape   
    device that does not support multiple densities. For tape drives that do   
    support multiple densities, the density value only applies when writing to
    the tape. When reading, the drive defaults to the density at which the tape
    is written.                                                               
 3. Most tape drives use 512-byte block size. The 8mm tape drive uses a minimum
    block size of 1024 bytes. Using SMIT to lower the block size, will waste   
    space.                                                                                               


Another one to look at is the "tctl" command, which does rewinding for you.

In the actual 43P machine the internal SCSI cable is a loop from mother board to devices
and back again - each device has to have jumper set SCSI id and the termination is
in the motherboard.  If you connect inappropriate devices (wrong SCSI type), that will
give SCSI termination errors - only a select band of devices is supported and will work !

Anyone would think my knuckles drag on the ground now 

Well, I'm not sure about this but it seems to me that any network interface on the ANS runs two protocols at the same time within every single interface adapter. When calling the communication devices from SMIT every interface offers a "et" and an additional "802.3" so it's up to You to choose one.

I've been fiddeling around with that box yesterday quite some time and I discovered several things that appear unusual to me. Regarding networking it took me some time to figure out that one single TCP/IP stack is handling ALL network interfaces at the same time - before I thought there is a single stack for every single interface as the ANS can handle up to seven interfaces at the same time.

Another strange thing which I have to resolve: the ANS utilizes a level 2 cache chip which is - to my surprise - not "configured" after a clean BOS install. I know that AIX notes every single chip and device so I thought as long as this is a "standard" chip from  Apple their version of AIX should have been "installing" it. I didn't notice it from within SMIT but from the early startup diagnostics (didn't know until yesterday that turning the key switch in to service position before boot up it evokes this service diagnostics). Compared to other Macs this machine really lacks in-deep documentation in very essential points.

I also noticed that the ANS can handle a Quantum 40 GB DLT tape drive for backups but - instead of the built-in DDS2 tape drive - it can not rewind the tape for example in  order to boot of that DLT tape and restore the system. When booting off the installation CD the tape can at least be used for OS and system restoration. At any other point the DLT seems to work fine. The DDS2 can boot and install / restore but I don't know how to activate the hardware compression (must be software-driven as this Apple tape DDS doesn't feature jumpers for this option). 4 GB of tape space is not as much as I may need in the future. Thanks to the DLT it uses hardware compression so I'm having the option of 80 GB per tape.

Another odd thing about the ANS: Apple states the tray drives as "automatically terminated and SCSI ID given". While the drives really do get their correct SCSI ID dependig on the drive tray they are in the SCSI chain is not terminated or at least not terminated correctly. You still have to use jupers for that one meaning that several Seagate drives can not be used at the end of the chain because they lack termination by jumper setting.

After all my ANS seems to be very close to an IBM 43p machine - a Pro at least told me that  so I hope this can solve some compatibility questions a bit better.

J

When running cfgmgr it throws 0514-040 Error initializing a device into the kernel message (Method Error (/usr/lib/methods/cfgde)).

When running lslpp -L >x; grep 2310 x simply nothing happens, just a line break (the "#" now missing) and a blinking block cursor. So I donīt think it installed anything.

In the meantime I was able to "configure" TCP/IP at least a bit. Might be a small step for You but for me it is indeed a very large one! The AIX interfaces are still very confusing to me. So for now a 10MBps line is up on et1 and et0 and I was able to ping these from Mac OS X so this first step is the basis for all following =)

J

Thanks a lot for this, Iīm beginning to understand some command line basics by now. I determined the MAC adresses of the onboard ethernet of the ANS and the MAC adress of the SMC NIcard (a DEC NIC clone I suppose). The MAC adress of the 100 MBit Apple NIC isnīt recognized (who wonders...).

Iīm not sure if You understood my DHCP question. I already noticed that AIX can act as a DHCP server (although I still donīt know what to configure where) but this is not what Iīm aiming at.
Iīm using a D-Link router which acts as a DHCP server providing static IP adresses to all of my machines in accordance to the MAC adress of their NI. I donīt want to set up my ANS as DHCP routing machine, it just has to "get" itīs static IP adresses from the router while every NI in the ANS gets itīs own IP adress (a maximum of 7 possible IP adresses as the ANS has one onboard ethernet port and up to six possible PCI NI ports).

I already reserved my wanted IP adresses within the D-Link router and bound them to the MAC adresses of the ANS. Sorry for being not too exact with my question: is AIX able to "get" the IP adresses provided by the D-Link -> dynamically <- or do I have to configure AIX -> manually <- to self-assign this IP adress? For example NeXTstep 3.3 isnīt able to get IP adresses dynamically (unless you are installing an additional DHCP package NOT from NeXT). If You are not using this package You have to edit Your network settings by hand "reserving" the wanted IP adress inside the NeXTstep OS AND (!) within the used D-Link router.

J

With installation media in the drive try:

installp -d /dev/cd0 -L | grep device.pci.2310

With luck there will be a 4.1.5.0 fileset. Once this is installed - you will have the base filesets installed - and now you can use smitty update_all to update the 4.1.5.1 version.

AIX version 4 supports DHCP. If you want it to be a client just use:

# smitty usedhcp

This will make the changes to the config files in /etc and start the dhcpcd demons.

An update to keep You informed...

I didnīt get very far until now so further questions / informations will have to wait a bit. In the meantime I got the book which describes AIX 4.1 / 4.3 a bit into deep. This book and some more researches teached me a bit more about my special machine and itīs AIX.

First of all: the ANS is much more close to a RS/6000 system than to a PowerMac 9500 - this explains why lots of Apple hardware wonīt work as expected (and in return: much more IBM hardware from this time will work). For example: the Apple 10/100 card will only work with 10 MBps - there is no way to force it to operate in 100 MBps mode. It has to be a 3com for PowerPC systems or several IBM cards. So for now I will have to look out for such a card (got a compatibility list by now <sigh>). The same is for graphics cards.

Now for the AIX versions: AIX 4.1.4 does not contain any other languages than US English. Only option I had is to install the Swiss German keyboard layout which actually works. AIX 4.1.5 contains all other languages so I installed the Swiss German language surroundings. After Iīve noticed that far more informations are only available in English I decided to reinstall AIX 4.1.5 in English language - I can change that later on if the machine is up and running.

For the diag / low-level format thing: As the ANS does not have a BIOS but an OpenFirmware dialog the command "diag" does not exist (who wonders). I have to boot off the CD to get a terminal window and "diag" does exist in this ANS AIX version - but it refuses to format disks larger than 36 GB. In fact AIX destroys drives larger than 36 GB (which killed a 146 GB drive already, not noticable anymore by my macs <sigh again>).

Right now Iīm setting up tha ANS again with a clean English AIX 4.1.5 installation (there are absolutely NO 4.1.5.1 packages just 4.1.5.0).

The book is quite helpfull in some aspects but especially the TCP/IP setup confuses me again. Although I already asked for it I still do not understand how to determine the MAC adress of the one 10MBps adapter (SMC, some sort of DEC copy). What do I have to do where to get this information?

Another thought popped up to my head: as Iīm dealing with several other old OSses, too I thought about "what about DHCP"? Some older UNIXes like NeXTstep or others do not understand DHCP - but I want to use my D-Link router to provide just one IP address according to the MAC of that adapter. Can this be done? Does AIX get along with such options / settings?

In between I tried to set up AppleTalk within this AIX. As I suppose nobody in here actually uses AppleTalk on their systems Iīm pretty sure nobody can help me in here. Just to let You know what I tried in between: exactly following Appleīs guidelines in installing that stack (but without setting up TCP/IP before) the AppleTalk deamon refused to start so I couldnīt use my Macs to contact the ANS at least with AppleTalk.

I know that my way to handle all this is rather unusual and ineffective but I want to understand every single step Iīm doing.

did not know what Apple would call it, but need the values, if possible, that the system says it has. However, we may be able to solve this differently as well.

Try the Apple CD first:
# cfgmgr -i /dev/cd0

This command does a plug and play discovery of devices, and when it finds a device that does not have a driver on system, it checks the installation media (-i) for a driver.
If you get your error message again, try the AIX 4.1.5 disk as well.

To see what is on an IBM media disk use the following command:

# installp -d /dev/cd0 -L

and maybe grep for your device number.

device.pci.23100020
devices.pci.pci.1023+2000


You came very close:

bff = file type extension (?) -- Backup File Format (as in backup/restore command rather than tar or cpio)
4.1.5.1 = version of AIX this driver is supposed to be used within (?): AIX 4.1.5, patch #1
diag = diagnostics.

More IBM speak now: IBM files sets are delivered as LPP: Licensed Program Packages. LPP are packaged as filesets, and filesets can be bundled. We wont deal with bundles here - just name dropping.

The LPP for this device is: devices.pci.23100020

The filesets are: diag, com, and rte (without looking these are the most common filesets for devices) and then there is the version number as well.

When you use the installp command above to list LPP filesets on media, or in a directory, there are two types: type I and type U (Installable, and Update). Updates only work in combination with an already installed fileset. Installable are installable when it has not been installed before, or it is a higher level the the current version installed. So updates are small by comparison. You can also force an installation (to go backwards, or to reinstall because you doubt the integrity of the installed version).

Yes, a fix for some diagnostics routines, not the driver (in the .com - common, and .rte - run time environment) filesets.


If the driver exists on the media, the cfgmgr command above will install it for you just as if it was a fresh installation.


lsdev -Cc disk

will list the disks AIX sees - with a short description of how AIX sees them. NonIBM disks are generally typed as: disk osdisk        scsi  Other SCSI Disk Drive

To get a list of disk types and sizes AIX recognizes use:

lsdev -Pc disk


I generally use either:

shutdown -Fh #halt system
or
shutdown -Fr #reboot system

the -F option is similar to saying "now" with other versions of UNIX and Linux.
With the AIX you installed, or with an Apple O/S? Check the list of recognized devices. For an indivudial disk use:

lsattr -EHl hdiskX ## the H argument is optional, for headings


execute the command:
diag

Go to the third general area: Task Selection
In this area there is an option to format or certify SCSI disks.

Just remember that in the heydays of AIX 4.1.X 4G disks were huge! 320Mbyte and 660Mbyte disks were the standard. Hard to believe!!

Well I hope this takes care of most of your short term issues. I am checking friends of friends for the Apple update.

p.s. I'll look up the command to install the German language filesets - officially, rather than just copying.