Admin Alert: What Vendors Want to Know (and How to Get It)

Published: September 26, 2007

by Joe Hertvik

When purchasing i5/OS third-party software, vendors may request system control information for the partition their products will be installed in. This information is used to create unique licensing keys that must be installed with the product for piracy prevention. Unfortunately, IBM doesn't have one screen to find vendor-required system information. To remedy that fault, this week I provide a roadmap for locating common vendor information.

What Vendors Want

It's my experience that System i software vendors are generally looking for two or more of the following pieces of system control information in order to create a unique product licensing key.

1. System serial number--The seven-digit number that uniquely identifies your machine. Many System i, iSeries, and AS/400 serial numbers start with the number 10 and it's common to see the serial number printed in the format xx-yyyyy, where xx equals the first two digits of the serial number and yyyyy equals the last five digits of the serial number. Serial numbers can be displayed in the system either with or without a connecting dash (i.e., 10B7397 or 10-B7397).
2. Machine type--A four-digit identifier that IBM traditionally uses to identify different types of machines in each of its product line. Common System i, iSeries, and AS/400 machine types include 9402, 9404, and 9406. The same machine type is commonly used across several different types of models.
3. Model number--The four-character value that defines the specific type of System i machine that you own. Common System i models include the models 550 and 570. Although IBM stores this value in a four-character field, many model numbers are only three characters long.
4. Processor feature--The processor feature code level of the system, which identifies the processor used on the system.
5. Processor group--The processor category that IBM considers your processor feature to belong to (i.e., P10, P20). Because many vendors price software by processor group, this is one of the more important values when purchasing third-party software. The higher processor group that your partition belongs to, the more expensive it may become to purchase your software.
6. Partition ID--In a partitioned system, the individual number (starting with 1) that identifies your partition to the system.
7. Number of processors that are allocated to this partition--This value displays how many processors out of the machine's total processor pool belong to the partition where you want to install the software.

Except for your partition ID and the number of processors allocated to your partition, the rest of these system values are the same for all partitions on the same machine. Many of these numbers are listed together in the same functions but to get all of these numbers, you may have to reference several different areas on either the green screen, in iSeries Navigator (OpsNav), or on the Hardware Management Console (HMC). Here's my cheat sheet of techniques for locating system control system values. To help you figure out where you can go to retrieve any one of these values, I have listed the system values that each technique retrieves both in the section describing the technique and in a summary table at the end of this article.

WRKSYSVAL on the Green Screen

Values retrieved: System serial number, model number, and processor feature

You can find these particular items by using the following Work with System Values command (WRKSYSVAL) to display the system control system values.

WRKSYSVAL SYSVAL(*SYSCTL)

This command displays a sub-file of many different system values dealing with system control. To view any of the three values off our list, you can put a '5'=Display in front of these entries.

QSRLNBR – System Serial Number
QMODEL – System Model Number
QPRCFEAT – System Processor Feature

OpsNav System Control System Values Screen

Values retrieved: System serial number, model number, and processor feature

You can retrieve this group of values in iSeries Navigator by expanding the Configuration and Service→System Values node under your target partition and then opening the System Control entry that appears in the right-hand OpsNav pane.

OpsNav System Properties Screen

Values retrieved: System serial number, machine type, model number

The maddening thing about hunting for system values is that IBM doesn't group all of the relevant values in one place. While the last two techniques were great for getting the serial number, model number, and processor feature, they did not retrieve the machine type or processor group. While I don't have a technique for retrieving the processor group inside OpsNav, you can easily retrieve the machine type along with the model number and serial number by right-clicking on your i5/OS system node and then selecting Properties from the pop-up menu that appears. Once your system's Properties window appears, click on the General tab and the system serial number, machine type, and model number will appear.

WRKLICINF on the Green Screen

Values retrieved: System serial number and Processor Group

You can use the Work with License Information command (WRKLICINF) to retrieve the serial number and processor group. Just type in WRKLICINF and that information will appear in the header of the WRKLICINF screen.

The Retrieve License Information API (QLZARTV)

Values retrieved: Processor group

To retrieve the processor group for a partition, you can write a program using the retrieve license information API (QLZARTV) to retrieve information in the LICR0200 format. Inside the returned LICR0200 data structure, you can find your system's processor group in a three-digit character value starting at offset 47. For more information on using QLZARTV, see IBM's Web site on the API.

Hardware Management Console (HMC)

Values retrieved: System serial number, machine type, model type, number of processors allocated to this partition, partition ID

If your system is set up with an HMC, you can retrieve the current number of processors and the partition ID by going into the Hardware Management Console and opening the Server and Partition→Server Management node in the left-hand pane. On the right-hand side of the HMC, you will see all the logical partition profiles that are defined for the system you are controlling. Right-click on the logical partition name you want to examine and select Properties from the pop-up menu that appears. This will bring up the Partition Properties window for your target partition.

In the Properties window, you can click on the General tab and the HMC will show you the serial number, the machine type, the model type, and the partition ID for the partition. If you are looking for the current number of processors, click on the Hardware tab in the Properties window and select the Processors and Memory sub-tab that appears on the screen. In this window, you'll be able to find the current number of processors that are allocated to your partition.

Service Agent Registration Information on the Green Screen

Values retrieved: Machine type, system serial number, partition ID

Outside of the Hardware Management Console, the only other place where I found the partition ID is in the Display service registration information option on the Electronic Service Agent menu. To get to this display, open the Electronic Service Agent menu by typing the following Go to Menu command (GO) inside a PC5250 session.

GO SERVICE

Select option 6, Display service registration information and the machine type, serial number, and the partition ID will appear.

OpsNav System Status Screen

Values retrieved: Number of processors allocated to this partition

Also outside of the HMC, you can find the number of processors currently allocated to a partition in the Processors area of the OpsNav System Status screen. To get to this screen, right-click on your target system node in OpsNav and select System Status from the pop-up menu that appears. This brings up the OpsNav System Status display. Click on the Processors tab on that display and this screen will show you the number of processors that are currently allocated to the partition.

One Goal, Many Roads

As you can see, it's fairly easy to retrieve vendor requested system information if you just know where to look. The frustrating thing is that IBM doesn't put all this information together in one place for easy retrieval. In future releases, Big Blue will hopefully make this information easier to find for its users.

About Our Testing Environment

Configurations described in this article were tested on an i5 550 box running i5/OS V5R3. Many of the commands may also be available in earlier versions of the operating system running on iSeries or AS/400 machines. iSeries Navigator (OpsNav) features were tested with the OpsNav version that is shipped with iSeries Access for Windows V5R3M0. If a command is present in earlier versions of the i5/OS or OS/400 operating systems, you may notice some variations in the pre-V5R3 copies of these commands. These differences may be due to command improvements that have occurred from release to release.

i5/OS Methods For Retrieving System Control Information

RELATED STORY

Retrieve License Information (QLZARTV) API, IBM

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