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Subject: Re: 43_maintenance
From: AIX Service Mail Server (aixservaustin.ibm.com)
Date: Sat Oct 14 2000 - 01:19:48 CDT

This document describes the maintenance strategy for AIX 4.3, and
also serves as a notification mechanism for AIX 4.3 preventive
maintenance. The document will be updated whenever new preventive
maintenance is available. If you subscribe to this document, you
will automatically be notified when new maintenance for AIX 4.3
becomes available.

The latest AIX 4.3 Maintenance Level is: 4.3.3
The latest AIX 4.3.3 Recommended Maintenance is: 4330-05
The latest AIX 4.3 Update CD is: 0010

Maintenance Levels and Recommended Maintenance can be obtained from
the "Base Maintenance Levels" category of FixDist. For more
information on FixDist, send mail to aixservaustin.ibm.com with a
subject of "FixDist".

Update CDs contain fixes for critical problems, preventive maintenance,
software functional enhancements, and support for new hardware that
was not originally supported in AIX 4.3.3. Update CDs are shipped
with the AIX product media. To obtain the latest Update CD, contact
your point fo sale and request no-charge feature 0838. Customers who
purchased AIX from IBM in the U.S. can call 800-879-2755.

AIX 4.3 Maintenance Strategy
============================

Filesets
--------
AIX 4.3 is divided into filesets, where each fileset contains a
group of logically related customer deliverable files. Each fileset
can be individually installed and updated.

Revisions to filesets are tracked using the version, release,
modification, and fix (VRMF) levels. Each time a fileset update is
applied, the fix level is adjusted. Each time a maintenance level
is applied, the modification level is adjusted, and the fix level
is reset to zero.

Maintenance Levels
------------------
A Maintenance Level (ML) consists of one fileset update for each
fileset that has changed since the base level of AIX 4.3. Each of
these fileset updates is cumulative, containing all fixes for that
fileset since AIX 4.3 was introduced, and supersedes all previous
updates for the same fileset.

Maintenance Levels are named using the 4 digit VRMF level.

There have been 3 ML produced for AIX 4.3:

   * ML 4310, also called AIX 4.3.1
   * ML 4320, also called AIX 4.3.2
   * ML 4330, also called AIX 4.3.3

You can determine which Maintenance Level is installed using the
'oslevel' command.

Recommended Maintenance
-----------------------
A Recommended Maintenance level is a set of fileset updates that
apply to the last maintenance level. Recommended maintenance
packages are made up of field tested fileset updates, and provide
a mechanism for delivering preventive maintenance packages between
full maintenance levels.

Recommended Maintenance levels are named using the 4 digit VRMF
level of the maintenance level to which they apply, with a 2 digit
suffix.

There have been 5 Recommended Maintenance levels for ML 4330.

   * 4330-01
   * 4330-02
   * 4330-03
   * 4330-04
   * 4330-05

You can determine if the 4330-05 Recommended Maintenance level is
installed using the following command. The 'oslevel' will still
indicate '4.3.3.0', confirming that the 4330 Maintenance Level is
applied.

   instfix -ik 4330-05_AIX_ML