• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 9

  March 3, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  Hello, good people of the IBM i Land. As so many newscasters all said across the United States earlier this week, it is hard to believe that it is March already. But it is March indeed, and it has been about a year since the coronavirus went pandemic. We hope you are well, and we hope you stay that way.

  In this week’s edition of the IBM i PTF Guide, you will see that Rational Developer for i now supports an updated Java – to be specific, Java 8 SR 6 FP 15. You can find out more at …

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• IBM i 7.1 Extended Out To 2024 And Up To The IBM Cloud

  March 1, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In case you have not figured it out, Big Blue has finally figured out that IBM i 7.1 is a wall that a lot of customers can’t get over. Which is something we have been saying for a long time. And to IBM’s credit, it is doing something about it. A bunch of things, as it turns out, and as part of the February 23 announcements last week, IBM did a few more things that will increase the long-term viability of this release.

  IBM i 7.1 went off regular support back on April 30, 2018, which was almost three years …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 8

  February 24, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  Welcome to this week’s edition of the IBM i PTF Guide. Right off the bat, there are SMTP recommended fixes for IBM i 7.4, IBM i 7.3, and IBM i 7.2. Use recommended fixes link in the guide for your appropriate release.

  Otherwise, there ain’t much going on. Which is often a good thing.

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level:

  PTF Groups 7.4:

  • MGTools

  PTF Groups 7.3:

  • MGTools

  PTF Groups 7.2:

  • MGTools

  PTF Groups 7.1:

  • Nothing here, as often happens.

  New (or Updated) Links for this week:

  • Optical: IBM i Removable Media: Optical

  …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 7

  February 17, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  This first bit in the news is a biggy for any Hardware Management Console (HMC) users. IBM has made an announcement regarding firmware for the HMC, and specifically, it regards FW950 and the required minimum HMC level of V9R2M950. What this means is that if the customer does not have a 7063-CR1 or Virtual HMC V9 appliance, they cannot HMC install/manage any Power9 server running FW950.

  See more at this link and look for more coverage in the next issue of The Four Hundred.

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level:

  PTF Groups 7.4: …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 6

  February 10, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  For those of you who are enthusiastic about the feed and speeds and slots and watts of machinery like we are, you will be happy to know that there is a new Redbook publication called IBM Power Systems S922, S914, and S924 Technical Overview and Introduction, Featuring PCIe Gen 4 Technology, which does exactly what the title says and you can see at this link.

  Also there is a new Security Bulletin: Multiple vulnerabilities in IBM Java SDK and IBM Java Runtime affect IBM i, which you can read about here. The latest Java Group for each …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 5

  February 3, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  When you watch PTF patches as part of making your living, you notice patterns. This week, the IBM i PTF Guide is a bit strange, or rather, IBM’s pattern of PTF updates is. Normally, when a PTF group is updated on one release, that same group is updated on the other two releases. This week, it is different. IBM i 7.4 has more groups changed than IBM i 7.3, and weirdly IBM i 7.3 has more groups changed than IBM i 7.2. It’s . . . just a little odd.

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 4

  January 27, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  Java Java Java Java Java Chameleon, the PTFs come and go, they come and go. And in this case, during a pretty slow week in PTF Land, all of the four 7.X releases of the IBM i operating system got their patches. Even the mostly quiet IBM i 7.1, which is on extended-extended life support these days but still pretty popular. Java updates on IBM i 7.1? Whodathunkit?

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level:

  PTF Groups 7.4:

  • Java

  PTF Groups 7.3:

  • Java

  PTF Groups 7.2:

  • Java

  PTF Groups 7.1:

  • Java, yes, IBM i

  …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 3

  January 20, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  The IBM i platform may be more rugged and secure than any other platform out there, but no software, no matter how cleverly written, is impregnable or unassailable. Every piece of software has some attack surface, even if it is minimized to the greatest practical extent.

  And so it is that we learn about Security Bulletin: OpenSSL for IBM i is affected by CVE-2020-1971, which you can read about more at this link and which is yet another vulnerability that comes through the OpenSSL stack. The issues can be fixed by applying a PTF to IBM i. IBM i releases …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 2

  January 13, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  It was a pretty quiet week on the PTF front, which is pretty much expected from the IBM i community about this time of the year. Still, there were some tweaks here and there that you need to have on your radar.

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level:

  PTF Groups 7.4:

  • High Availability for IBM i
  • IBM HTTP Server for i

  PTF Groups 7.3:

  • High Availability for IBM i
  • IBM HTTP Server for i

  PTF Groups 7.2:

  • High Availability for IBM i
  • IBM HTTP Server for i

  PTF Groups 7.1:

  • Not much happening here.

  …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 1

  January 11, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  This is the first IBM i PTF Guide of 2021, so we wish everyone a Happy New Year and we are declaring here and now that 2021 will be a better year than 2020, and as it is written, so let it be done.

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level:

  PTF Groups 7.4:

  • TCP/IP

  PTF Groups 7.3:

  • TCP/IP

  PTF Groups 7.2:

  • TCP/IP

  PTF Groups 7.1:

  • Nothing, as is usually the case unless something really funky is going on. And considering that Big Blue is now supporting IBM i 7.1 on logical partitions on Power9

  …

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