Understanding AIX levels

Understanding AIX levels

What do all those numbers mean on oslevel -s?

If you're looking for some guidance on understanding exactly what level of AIX you're running, you may like to read my article in the IBM Systems Magazine on Understanding AIX versions. It answers questions such as:

• What's a TL?
• What's a Service Pack?
• When you run oslevel -s, what do all the numbers mean?
• Should you run a migration or a smitty update_all?
• What's the difference between applying and committing updates?
• Why does my oslevel go backwards after installing new software?

Here's an extract:

If your system is running AIX 5.3 TL 6 or anything later, “oslevel -s” will look something like this: 6100-02-06-0943. Breaking that down, the first four numbers show the AIX base level. In this example, it’s 6100, which means we’re running AIX 6.1. Next is the Technology Level (TL), followed by the number of the Service Pack (SP).The last four digits show the release date of the Service Pack using the format YYWW (YY for the year, then WW for the week of the year). So, if your “oslevel -s” command reports 6100-02-06-0943, then you know you’re on AIX 6.1, running TL 2, with SP 6. The “0943” tells you that Service Pack came out in week 43 of 2009. It’s time to update your system.

"oslevel -s" examples

Or, if you like, you can read the full article on Understanding AIX versions.