4.149. ppc64-utils

The help output of the "ls-vdev" command suggested using the "--version" and "--help" options although "ls-vdev" does not support these options. This update corrects the command help output so it displays only supported options, currently "-V" and "-h".

The vscsisadmin utility and other tools installed by the ppc64-utils package relied on the obsolete ibmvscsis driver. Without the driver configured, the system displayed the following error on boot:

Starting ibmvscsisd: /etc/ibmvscsis.conf file does not exist. [FAILED]

This could have confused users. This update therefore removes these obsolete utilities from the ppc64-utils package, and the system no longer tries to initialize the ibmvscsisd service.

The lsmcode tool provided incomplete information when it was used with with "-A, --All" or "-dDEV, --device=DEV" options. The lsmcode command help output and the lsmcode(8) manual page also described obsolete options, "-c, --no-menus" and "-r, --tabular". With this update, all aforementioned problems has been corrected, the command help output and manual page now provides only relevant information and lsmcode works as expected.

The powerpc-utils component, which is a part of the ppc64-utils package, has been upgraded to upstream version 1.2.10. This update, among other changes, adjusts the ofpathname script to support and enable the SAS VRAID capability for IBM Power7 6Gb SAS PCIe Gen2 adapters.

The upgraded powerpc-utils component introduces a new tool, lparstat, that allows to display various attributes and performance metrics of IBM Power Logical Partitions, which the tool collects from various system files, such as /proc/ppc64/lparcfg.