The Four Hundred

In last week's column, I provided a checklist for applying OS/400 PTFs. That checklist spawned some additional reader comment that caused me to reevaluate some of my statements and to learn a few additional tricks about applying cumulative PTFs. Here's what I learned, thanks to an active and involved readership.

Stuart Edge wrote in to question whether to apply the cumulative PTFs, followed by an IPL, before you install the HIPER/Database group PTFs:

While I agree that the two PTF installs should be performed separately, the documentation that comes on the CDs with the PTFs (in the instruct.txt file) states:

"To save time you will be instructed to install the HIPER/Database Group PTFs prior to installing the Cumulative PTF Package UNLESS installing as part of an OS/400 release upgrade."

This conflicts with your recommended installation order. I followed the IBM recommended installation order, and I had no problems. Is there a definitive order in applying the two groups of PTFs?

After reading Stuart's e-mail, I rechecked the documentation that IBM sent me, along with the latest cumulative PTF CDs, in February. Stuart was right, and I realized I had issued a recommendation that was clearly against IBM's recommendation. But what bothered me was that I had installed cumulative and HIPER/Database group PTFs several times in the past exactly as described in my article. I had even installed the latest V5R1 cumulative and HIPERS/Database PTFs in that order on the night before my article ran last week. Nothing untoward had happened to my system.

Clearly, there was more here than meets the eye. I did a little research, both for my own knowledge and for the safety of my systems. Here's what I found.

First, according to the wording in IBM's instructions, Big Blue specifies that HIPERS/Database group PTFs should be installed first, "to save time." This sounds more like a convenience specification that doesn't indicate that any damage will occur if you install the HIPERS/Database PTFs after you install the cumulative PTFs. And, as I pointed out, people install in this manner all the time. Furthermore, IBM also seems to indicate that group PTF installation can occur after cumulative PTF installation if it's done as part of an upgrade (as emphasized by the capitalized word UNLESS in the statement Stuart sent me).

I also called IBM technical support to check if the HIPERS/Database could be installed either before or after the cumulative PTFs. Tech support said that doing so after a cumulative installation wouldn't harm your system but that IBM preferred that you load cumulative PTFs second, according to its instructions (where you load HIPERS/Database group first, followed by the cumulative PTFs and an IPL). The best point that tech support made was that, if you're not loading too many group PTFs, you can skip doing an extra IPL by installing the PTFs in the following two-step manner (this information is also contained in IBM's installation instructions).

Install the HIPERS/Database group PTF in the first step. Go into the Program Temporary Fix menu (by typing GO PTF from a command line), and select option 8, Install program temporary fix package. Load the name of your OS/400 optical drive (OPT01, for example) into the Device name parameter and set the Automatic IPL parameter to N (for "no"). Leave the other parameters at their defaults, and press the Enter key. When the install program prompts you for your PTF CDs, place the first HIPERS/Database CD in the drive and change CDs as the PTF installation process requests them.

After the HIPERS/Database PTFs install is finished, the new PTFs will be loaded, marked for application at the next IPL, and, because you specified that the machine shouldn't IPL after the load, the install process will return you to the command line again.

For the second step, install the cumulative PTFs from your CD media. Enter the GO PTF menu a second time and select option 8, Install program temporary fix package. Enter the same parameters as you did for the HIPERS/Database install, except this time enter Y (for "yes") in the Automatic IPL parameter. Swap the cumulative PTF CDs in your optical drive as directed by the load process, and after the PTFs are loaded your AS/400 or iSeries will IPL and your PTFs will be applied as the box comes back up.

Aside from these changes, which replace steps three and five in last week's article, the process is pretty much the same as I previously outlined. So it's best to follow IBM's instructions in loading HIPERS/Database and cumulative PTFs, but it may not be disastrous if you load the sets out of order.

Reader Jeff Brown wrote in to tell me about a PTF application technique called Virtual Optical Device, which I had never heard of:

I would like to point out that IBM has provided a method whereby a customer can load and apply the cumulative PTFs, as well as the Hiper/Database group PTFs, in one fell swoop. This is accomplished through the use of a Virtual Optical Catalog. This catalog can be loaded with both the Hiper/Database CDs and the cumulative CDs. When the customer is ready to activate the whole shebang, he simply specifies the Virtual Optical Device as the installation source; this is usually designated as device OPTVRT01. IBM includes instructions for setting this up in the load instructions that come with the CUME package (although it could be a little more clear). Basically, the CDs are "image copied" to the root directory of the IFS [Integrated File System]. Because of this, it is important to remove the image catalogs after installation, so that an IFS save doesn't attempt to backup these images (possibly running your tape drive out of tape).

This is a fairly new OS/400 technique that I don't have time to test and review in this article. However, I did find a reference in the OS/400 V5R2 iSeries Information Center that explains how to install fixes from an image catalog. It seems to discuss all the same issues that Jeff mentioned in his e-mail. Unfortunately, I only found an OS/400 V5R2 reference for this. There doesn't seem to be a comparable V5R1 documented technique.

Even though I haven't tried this option, there are two obvious downsides. The first, which Jeff alluded to in his e-mail, is that you must have enough free disk space to load the PTF CDs to your IFS. And, as Jeff warned, if you don't remove the image catalogue from your IFS, the extra allocated space can adversely affect your IFS backup.

IBM refers to the second downside in the iSeries Information Center article, where it states that you should remove the images from your image catalogue after installing the PTFs. This is because, if you continue to add new images to the same image catalog without removing the old images, PTF install processing will attempt to install the fixes from all of the loaded images in the catalog, which could cause problems.

Loading cumulative PTFs can be complicated. But if you examine the steps put forward by IBM, myself, and our readers, things will become clearer and system maintenance will become easier.

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