Down-level Filesets on AIX

Investigating the issue with the 'oslevel' command

DevOps
AIX, IBM,

AIX Levels are named based on Release, Technology Level (TL), Service Pack (SP), and Build Sequence Identifier e.g. 7100-05-04-1914. As well as the current OS level, the oslevel command can show details of the TLs and SPs on a server along with details of any up- or down-level filesets.

You can read more in the IBM online documentation but here are the parameters we are interested in:

FlagDescription
-fRebuild the cache for this operation
-rAll specified flags are applied to technology levels
-sAll specified flags are applied to service packs
-l levelLists filesets that are earlier than the specified level
-qLists the known technology levels or service packs with the latest at the top of the list

We can confirm that our server is running the latest available level by checking the following:

  • If the current OS level matches the latest known level, everything is OK.
  • If not but the current TL matches the latest know TL then there is an issue with the current SP.
  • Otherwise, the issue is with the current TL.

The following script shows the implementation of these steps and will display all down-level filesets, if applicable:

#!/usr/bin/ksh

return_code=0

echo "Checking oslevel..."

current_oslevel=$(oslevel -fs)
latest_oslevel=$(oslevel -sq 2>/dev/null | sed -n '1p')

if [[ "${current_oslevel}" == "${latest_oslevel}" ]]; then
  echo "Current OS Level OK: ${current_oslevel}"
else
  current_tl=$(oslevel -r)
  latest_tl=$(oslevel -rq 2>/dev/null | sed -n '1p')

  if [[ "${current_tl}" == "${latest_tl}" ]]; then
    echo "Current Service Pack appears downlevel:"
    echo "  Latest SP Level:  ${latest_oslevel}"
    echo "  Current SP Level: ${current_oslevel}"
    echo
    echo "Check the following filesets:"
    oslevel -s -l ${latest_oslevel}

    return_code=1
  else
    echo "Current Technology Level appears downlevel:"
    echo "  Latest TL Level:  ${latest_tl}"
    echo "  Current TL Level: ${current_tl}"
    echo
    echo "Check the following filesets:"
    oslevel -r -l ${latest_tl}

    return_code=2
  fi
fi

exit ${return_code}