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We have been playing around with the setup of our IBMi system to run various guest partitions that are running difference supported OS’s. The first install was another IBMi guest partition which would allow us to run HA testing between partitions and not require the use of a second system. The next partition we installed was a Linux partition which is running SuSe Linux, this is going to allow us to test the running of Easycom clients to the IBMi Easycom servers to pull back IBMi data and objects. Finally the last partition is going to be running AIX which will be used as a test platform to run PHP/Easycom in the same manner we do for Linux. As an additional future option we will install a RedHat partiton to allow us to run the PHP Easycom processes mainly to allow us to get comfortable with running RedHat and the PHP/Easycom setup.
The IBMi install was a breeze when we look back, setting up the initial Partition information using the HMC and building the NWSD etc was a challenge but IBM was very good at helping us get things running. Due to the lack of supply of the AIX software (that’s a whole story on its own) we moved to the Linux install next, with all of the information we had gathered while setting up the IBMi partition that went very well and took less than a day to complete including all the configuration.
AIX is a totally different story, to say I hate AIX is pretty strong but I am not far off. Trying to get a reason interface (KDE was our preference) and a VNC server setup and running has been a nightmare! I though with the limited knowledge we have with Linux it should be pretty achievable but that was not to be! BUT we have finally managed to get things up and running (I am not sure I want to try to restart the box though in case it does not come back up in the same manner) and have a working PHP/Easycom install. I should warn you the PHP/Easycom install is a botch up that we did with the help of our friends at Aura, we have taken the iAMP server and chnaged a few things to allow it to run on AIX, putting it all together in an RPM is a distant dream but it should be possible. IBM does have its own Apache and PHP bundle but we took the iAMP server route to see just what issue it would present and how effective it will be when running the i5_toolkit function to the IBMi and we could not be sure the AIX modules generated would run under the IBM bundle.
So long story short we now have a working POWER Systems configuration that allow AIX to pull IBMi data and objects for the HTTP server to present.
Here is a picture of the VNC client running on a Windows 7 Laptop that is connected to a AIX Guest running under a IBMi hosting partition running iAMP server and pulling data from another IBMi parition! WoW that a lot of complexity!
Now to grow some hair back.
Chris..