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  • 1.  DNF UPDATE breaks DNF on AIX server upgraded from AIX 7.2 to 7.3

    Posted 3 days ago

    In July 2025 we upgraded a couple of systems from AIX 7.2 (7200-05-05) to AIX 7.3 (7300-02-02) using nimadm. After nimadm completed succesfully, we installed all HIPER- and security fixes available at that time. We installed dnf fresh from the toolbox and ran "dnf update" to update the RPMS as well. Everything worked well, including dnf and sudo etc.

    Last weekend maintenance was performed on the server. We have installed a script that performs an AIX fix-installation at reboot, which was about to install rpm.rte 4.18.1.2007 (instead of 4.18.1.2006). On AIX 7.2 we found out (the hard way) that "dnf update" (or "dnf update dnf") is required to prevent problems. So this was executed on this AIX 7300-02-02 system as well, it first did "dnf update dnf -y" (which completes succesfully), followed by installation of rpm.rte 4.18.1.2007.

    Unfortunately DNF and SUDO (probably amongst others) were no longer working, giving a message like:

    exec(): 0509-036 Cannot load program /opt/freeware/bin/python3.12 because of the following errors:
            0509-022 Cannot load module /opt/freeware/lib64/libintl.a(libintl.so.8).
            0509-150   Dependent module libgcc_s.a(shr.o) could not be loaded.
            0509-022 Cannot load module libgcc_s.a(shr.o).
            0509-026 System error: A file or directory in the path name does not exist. 

    This does not happen on a system freshly installed with AIX 7300-02-02. Installing rpm.rte 4.18.1.2007 is also not to blame, but dnf updating itself causes the issue.

    Turns out the directory /opt/freeware/lib contains a few libraries that point to a subdirectory in /opt/freeware/lib/gcc, that is dependent on the AIX level.

    lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     system           41 Nov 30 07:33 libatomic.a -> gcc/powerpc-ibm-aix7.2.0.0/13/libatomic.a
    lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     system           40 Nov 30 07:33 libgcc_s.a -> gcc/powerpc-ibm-aix7.2.0.0/13/libgcc_s.a
    lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     system           39 Nov 30 07:33 libgomp.a -> gcc/powerpc-ibm-aix7.2.0.0/13/libgomp.a
    lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     system           41 Nov 30 07:33 libstdc++.a -> gcc/powerpc-ibm-aix7.2.0.0/13/libstdc++.a

    When "dnf update dnf" is run, it installs several new packages including libgcc-1:13-2.ppc. This deletes the symbolic links in /opt/freeware/lib and makes them point to a different subdirectory:

    lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     system           41 Aug 01 11:44 libatomic.a -> gcc/powerpc-ibm-aix7.3.0.0/13/libatomic.a
    lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     system           40 Aug 01 11:44 libgcc_s.a -> gcc/powerpc-ibm-aix7.3.0.0/13/libgcc_s.a
    lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     system           39 Aug 01 11:44 libgomp.a -> gcc/powerpc-ibm-aix7.3.0.0/13/libgomp.a
    lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     system           41 Aug 01 11:44 libstdc++.a -> gcc/powerpc-ibm-aix7.3.0.0/13/libstdc++.a

    However, nothing in the underlying directory structure has changed, the actual library files are still in /opt/freeware/lib/gcc/powerpc-ibm-aix7.2.0.0.0 and subdirectories. So utilities needing this libraries fail.

    A simple trick to get dnf/sudo etc. working again is to create another symbolic link:

    # cd /opt/freeware/lib/gcc
    # ln -s powerpc-ibm-aix7.2.0.0 powerpc-ibm-aix7.3.0.0

    Now, AIX will be able to find the libraries. But I wonder if this "hack" procedures more difficulties in the future and what the official way there would have been to "fix" this before installing the newest libgcc etc.

    BTW. To update rpm.rte 4.18.1.2006 on AIX 7300-02-02 to 4.18.1.2007 you do not need to update dnf first, so we now skip this step. But still curious how we could have prevented this.



    ------------------------------
    Richard Westerik
    Principal specialist
    Simac IT NL bv
    Ede
    +31651575123
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: DNF UPDATE breaks DNF on AIX server upgraded from AIX 7.2 to 7.3

    Posted 3 days ago

    Hi Richard,

    what is the output of

    1. dnf check
    2. ls -l /opt/freeware/lib/gcc/powerpc-ibm-aix7.3.0.0/13/libgcc_s.a



    ------------------------------
    Lakshmi Surekha Kovvuri
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: DNF UPDATE breaks DNF on AIX server upgraded from AIX 7.2 to 7.3

    Posted 3 days ago

    The output of the commands is (after dnf update dnf, and creating a symbolic link):

    root@machine:/root # dnf check
    libgcc10-10.3.0-6.ppc has missing requires of AIX-rpm < 7.3.0.0
    libgcc13-13.3.0-1.ppc has missing requires of AIX-rpm < 7.3.0.0
    libgomp10-10.3.0-6.ppc has missing requires of AIX-rpm < 7.3.0.0
    libgomp13-13.3.0-1.ppc has missing requires of AIX-rpm < 7.3.0.0
    libstdc++10-10.3.0-6.ppc has missing requires of AIX-rpm < 7.3.0.0
    libstdc++13-13.3.0-1.ppc has missing requires of AIX-rpm < 7.3.0.0
    Error: Check discovered 6 problem(s)

    And

    root@machine:/root # ls -l /opt/freeware/lib/gcc/powerpc-ibm-aix7.3.0.0/13/libgcc_s.a
    -rw-r--r--    1 root     system      1806100 Jun 09 15:17 /opt/freeware/lib/gcc/powerpc-ibm-aix7.3.0.0/13/libgcc_s.a

    Note: the directory didn't exist, the original file(s) are in /opt/freeware/lib/gcc/powerpc-ibm-aix7.2.0.0/13 etc.



    ------------------------------
    Richard Westerik
    Principal specialist
    Simac IT NL bv
    Ede
    +31651575123
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: DNF UPDATE breaks DNF on AIX server upgraded from AIX 7.2 to 7.3

    Posted 2 days ago
    Edited by Lakshmi Surekha Kovvuri 2 days ago

    Hi Richard,

    Could you please do the following:

    • Run "updtvpkg" command

    • Reinstall all GCC ones:

      dnf reinstall libgcc10-10.3.0-6 ibgcc13-13.3.0-1 libgomp10-10.3.0-6 libgomp13-13.3.0-1 libstdc++10-10.3.0-6 libstdc++13-13.3.0-1

    • Remove the symbolic link you previously created.

    • After that, check again whether dnf is working correctly or not. if its not working please share what is the error.



    ------------------------------
    Lakshmi Surekha Kovvuri
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: DNF UPDATE breaks DNF on AIX server upgraded from AIX 7.2 to 7.3

    Posted 2 days ago

    I will try this.

    But is this a suggestion to try before doing the dnf update (done before installing rpm.rte 4.18.1.2007)? In order to prevent the problem from occurring? If so, I would expect not to have to remove the powerpc-ibm-7.3.0.0 link, because it isn't already there and the new libgcc* packages might create it.

    Or is this a suggestion to do after doing the dnf update and running into trouble that dnf and sudo (amongst others possibly) no longer work? If so, the dnf install process might write something in the powerpc-ibm-aix7.3.0.0 directory, but that will still be a symbolic link afterwards. If I then delete the symbolic link the programs will fail again.
    And if I delete the symbolic link before the dnf reinstall of the libgcc* packages will they work?

    PS. I did these steps (excluding the removal of the symbolic link) and dnf check no longer complains.



    ------------------------------
    Richard Westerik
    Principal specialist
    Simac IT NL bv
    Ede
    +31651575123
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: DNF UPDATE breaks DNF on AIX server upgraded from AIX 7.2 to 7.3

    Posted 2 days ago

    Hi Richard,

    Please read the below blog for more clarity:
    https://community.ibm.com/community/user/blogs/sangamesh-mallayya1/2022/01/10/aix-migration-with-dnf



    ------------------------------
    Lakshmi Surekha Kovvuri
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: DNF UPDATE breaks DNF on AIX server upgraded from AIX 7.2 to 7.3

    Posted 2 days ago

    Thanks for the blog - very informative and answers my question.
    Thank you.



    ------------------------------
    Richard Westerik
    Principal specialist
    Simac IT NL bv
    Ede
    +31651575123
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: DNF UPDATE breaks DNF on AIX server upgraded from AIX 7.2 to 7.3

    Posted 8 hours ago

    Richard, thanks for sharing the detailed analysis - it was very helpful in confirming the behavior we observed on our systems after migrating from AIX 7.2 to AIX 7.3 using nimadm.

    In our case, the issue also appeared immediately after running dnf update. The update recreates several GCC-related symlinks under /opt/freeware/lib/ and points them to gcc/powerpc-ibm-aix7.3.0.0/13/.

    But on nimadm-migrated systems this directory does not exist, because all GCC libraries were originally installed under gcc/powerpc-ibm-aix7.2.0.0/.

    This mismatch causes libgcc_s.a and related libraries to fail loading, which breaks dnf, sudo, python, and other tools.

    The workaround you described works perfectly. Creating the missing link fixes the problem immediately:

    cd /opt/freeware/lib/gcc
    ln -s powerpc-ibm-aix7.2.0.0 powerpc-ibm-aix7.3.0.0

    After this, dnf and sudo run normally again.

    This workaround is safe, as the GCC library content is compatible across these AIX minor versions - only the directory naming differs on migrated systems.

    For anyone who wants to fully rebuild the Toolbox environment, the following also works without issues:

    dnf clean all
    dnf reinstall libgcc libstdc++ gcc gcc-c++

    And as noted, updating dnf before installing rpm.rte on AIX 7.3 is not required, so skipping that step prevents the issue altogether.

    Thanks again for documenting the behavior so clearly it made troubleshooting much easier.



    ------------------------------
    [Nawaf] [Alsabah]
    Nawaf
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


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