michael.shulman wrote:
> Thanks for responding.
> My concern is - does the CD I'm booting off of have to be at the same
> patch level on on the tape (for example an AIX 5.3.00 CD and a mksysb
> at 5.3.05-01)

I believe the short answer to that is, "yes". BTW, once you have your
NIM environment set up, the master MUST be at the same or LATER OS level
(including fixes IIRC) than the client(s).

> I've been trying for a while with very little success to build a NIM
> environment. There's something going on with the networking on the NIM
> master. The response to building a new machine from an existing SPOT is
> spurrattic, meaning that the bootp on the NIM master will see the
> requests but won't even respond half of the time. I've opened up a
> trouble ticket with IBM but they don't seem to have a clue on how to
> resolve it. I've gone as far as destroying the entire NIM environment
> and rebuilding it, as well as the entire networking environment.
> I suppose I can pull down the DVD's of the latest patch level if
> necessary (it's probably smarter then what I'm currently doing
> anyway.)

Take a look at the network adapter speed and duplexing on both the
master AND the client; then check to see what the switch port each is
connecting through (assuming there is one) is set to. In my experience
with AIX (over the last 15 years :-} ), I've found most times, if your
systems are using 100 Mb/s adapters, this problem is related to
incompatible speed and/or (MOST times) duplexing negotiation "somewhere"
between the 2 systems (in NIM's case, the "client" and "master"). Once
you know which interface is in use, a good command to use to see what
the adapter(s) are set to is "entstat" (look up the command for syntax
and useage).

In my NIM admin days, I've never had ANY 100 Mb/s adapter issues -
assuming the adapter was good :-) - if the master's, client's AND THE
SWITCH port's settings (each was connected to) were set to 100 full
duplex; I HAVE had LOTS of similar AIX/NIM (though this is NOT specific
to NIM) issues if I left ANYTHING in the "100 Mb/s path"
autonegotiating...do a search on this forum for previous postings
related to this issue....again, NOTE this is if both ends are using 100
Mb/s adapters...things change if anything in there uses 10 Mb/s and/or
gigabit :-O

BTW, the "rules" change once the adapter-switch-adapter connection goes
to "gigabit" speeds.

HTHS and (as always with all things AIX/UNIX) I stand to be corrected :-)

P