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We had someone upgrade their AIX 5.2 box from SP3 to SP4. A couple of
days later, he decided he needed to roll back to SP3. He came to us to
see if it was possible to do so, and pointed out that he had installed
the Service Pack in the APPLIED state (not COMMITTED).
However, when I took a look, I found that while some of the filesets
were APPLIED, others were COMMITTED. I looked around, but couldn't
find any way to roll back to SP3. Any ideas?

"Rahim" <rahim@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:a63a27c.0411111152.6eca362a@posting.google.co m...
> We had someone upgrade their AIX 5.2 box from SP3 to SP4. A couple of
> days later, he decided he needed to roll back to SP3. He came to us to
> see if it was possible to do so, and pointed out that he had installed
> the Service Pack in the APPLIED state (not COMMITTED).
> However, when I took a look, I found that while some of the filesets
> were APPLIED, others were COMMITTED. I looked around, but couldn't
> find any way to roll back to SP3. Any ideas?

SP is a windows term, these are Maintenance Level Updates.
ML4 has a bunch of files the it installs and commits that are not on the
normal AIX install media.
These filesets will need to be identified and removed. The only reason I
know this is, I had a ML4 update
run out of space. I was applying, and figured I would just reject, but as
you said only some would reject.
I called IBM, and we went through the list and removed all the committed
files that were holding up the works.
Of course you should have made a mksysb or alt_disk clone prior to the
update, just in case something went wrong;-)
I think I have only seen 1 ML update break the application over the years,
but that of course depends on your application and the luck of the draw.
Doug

rahim@pobox.com (Rahim) wrote in message news:<a63a27c.0411111152.6eca362a@posting.google.c om>...
> We had someone upgrade their AIX 5.2 box from SP3 to SP4. A couple of
> days later, he decided he needed to roll back to SP3. He came to us to
> see if it was possible to do so, and pointed out that he had installed
> the Service Pack in the APPLIED state (not COMMITTED).
> However, when I took a look, I found that while some of the filesets
> were APPLIED, others were COMMITTED. I looked around, but couldn't
> find any way to roll back to SP3. Any ideas?

SP3? SP4? I assumed you mean ML3 to ML4, right? In your case, I don't
see any other alternative except restore from mksysb (If you do this
b4 applying ML4).

Rahim wrote:
> We had someone upgrade their AIX 5.2 box from SP3 to SP4. A couple of
> days later, he decided he needed to roll back to SP3. He came to us to
> see if it was possible to do so, and pointed out that he had installed
> the Service Pack in the APPLIED state (not COMMITTED).
> However, when I took a look, I found that while some of the filesets
> were APPLIED, others were COMMITTED. I looked around, but couldn't
> find any way to roll back to SP3. Any ideas?

A maintenance-level upgrade does not necessary upgrade all filesets.
There might be filesets for which there is no new version from ml3 to ml4.

use lslpp -h on the commited filesets. If the install-date is older than
the date where you upgraded, you can go back to ml3 by removing the
applied filesets.

btw: I would ask why "someone" decided to go back. Its better to analyse
the problem than just deleting patches.

"Douglas R. Probst" <doug.probst@rcn.com> wrote in message news:<buKdnbVIwKHbUg7cRVn-2w@rcn.net>...
> SP is a windows term, these are Maintenance Level Updates.
That was embarrassing. Put it down to lack of sleep.

> I called IBM, and we went through the list and removed all the committed
> files that were holding up the works.
Can you remove base level OS filesets? There are a bunch of bos.rte
filesets which are committed (bos.rte.boot, bos.rte.control ...).
After looking at those, I assummed there was no way we could remove
those and follow up with an install of a lower release of the filesets
(from ML03).

> Of course you should have made a mksysb or alt_disk clone prior to the
> update, just in case something went wrong;-)
Thing about mksysbs: we never need them when we make them. The one
time we don't ...

"Rahim" <rahim@mail2infinity.com> wrote in message
news:cc61c713.0411120857.489ccd28@posting.google.c om...
> "Douglas R. Probst" <doug.probst@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:<buKdnbVIwKHbUg7cRVn-2w@rcn.net>...
> > SP is a windows term, these are Maintenance Level Updates.
> That was embarrassing. Put it down to lack of sleep.
>
> > I called IBM, and we went through the list and removed all the committed
> > files that were holding up the works.
> Can you remove base level OS filesets? There are a bunch of bos.rte
> filesets which are committed (bos.rte.boot, bos.rte.control ...).
> After looking at those, I assummed there was no way we could remove
> those and follow up with an install of a lower release of the filesets
> (from ML03).
>
> > Of course you should have made a mksysb or alt_disk clone prior to the
> > update, just in case something went wrong;-)
> Thing about mksysbs: we never need them when we make them. The one
> time we don't ...

Do you have Software Support? If so, call IBM, some of those filesets it
complained about were not actual the ones that needed to be removed. If the
ML was APPLIED it can be rolled back.
Just for fun, can you email me the failure section of smit.log when you try
and reject the applied filesets.
Doug

> Do you have Software Support? If so, call IBM, some of those filesets it
> complained about were not actual the ones that needed to be removed. If the
> ML was APPLIED it can be rolled back.
> Just for fun, can you email me the failure section of smit.log when you try
> and reject the applied filesets.
> Doug

I called IBM support, their basic position was that there was no
mechanism to roll back on an ML, but if you applied them then you can
reject ....

And I did verify that some of the committed filesets were ones
installed as part of ML04; rather than using smit and manually
selecting every single ML04 fileset, I ran instalp against the
directory we had containing the ML04 installlation filesets, and told
it to reject them all. The cmd failed because some of those filesets
were committed.

It wasn't a huge deal, the owner of that server is now doing more
serious troubleshooting rather than the knee-jerk reaction to
uninstall. But it looks as though the install process sometimes
forcibly commits filesets even though you select apply (maybe because
there's no way they can be uninstalled?)

"Rahim" <rahim@mail2infinity.com> wrote in message
news:cc61c713.0411171335.5637de5a@posting.google.c om...
> > Do you have Software Support? If so, call IBM, some of those filesets it
> > complained about were not actual the ones that needed to be removed. If
the
> > ML was APPLIED it can be rolled back.
> > Just for fun, can you email me the failure section of smit.log when you
try
> > and reject the applied filesets.
> > Doug
>
> I called IBM support, their basic position was that there was no
> mechanism to roll back on an ML, but if you applied them then you can
> reject ....
>
> And I did verify that some of the committed filesets were ones
> installed as part of ML04; rather than using smit and manually
> selecting every single ML04 fileset, I ran instalp against the
> directory we had containing the ML04 installlation filesets, and told
> it to reject them all. The cmd failed because some of those filesets
> were committed.
>
> It wasn't a huge deal, the owner of that server is now doing more
> serious troubleshooting rather than the knee-jerk reaction to
> uninstall. But it looks as though the install process sometimes
> forcibly commits filesets even though you select apply (maybe because
> there's no way they can be uninstalled?)

The way it was explained to me by IBM was that these committed filesets were
not on the original base install and were in fact from the update ( they
could be wrong, has happened once in a great while ;-). To update a
filesets, the base level needs to be committed. So since these filesets
were not installed by you, it would be safe to say you can remove them. Now
my problem was I ran out of space and the update did not finish so maybe
that is why I was able to remove all the files applied and committed by the
ML4 updated.
Doug