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doc: bring AIX steps up to date with reality#4340

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doc: bring AIX steps up to date with reality#4340
sxa wants to merge 5 commits into
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sxa:aix73doc

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@sxa sxa commented May 15, 2026

I've collapsed a few sections into twisties to make this a bit more digestible for people who want an overview of what's needed for setting up AIX systems from our providers.
Some additions, some removals of obsolete things/references to things that are no longer manual (e.g. cmake)

Preview at https://github.com/sxa/nodebuild/blob/aix73doc/ansible/MANUAL_STEPS.md#aix

Still in draft for now as I'm still experimenting:

  • the index in the doc will likely need to be updated due to the changes
  • the explicit "AIX 7.2" heading is probably obsolete as most sections are applicable to 7.2/7.3 and we no longer have 7.1 or earlier.
  • The required physical disk sizes probably need to be updated as 20+50GB may not be adequate for newer versions with the additional requirements for node 26. 20+70GiB is probably a minimum.
  • Need to clarify if the ansible_python_interpreter can be configured properly as I haven't made it work other than from the ansible-playbook command line yet.
  • Need to verify on another clean system whether anything other than python3-pip is required to be installed manually (likely also dnf-python)
  • Check whether we really need all of the packages from the IBM UTILITIES package set.

Signed-off-by: Stewart X Addison <sxa@ibm.com>
@sxa sxa assigned sxa, abmusse and richardlau and unassigned abmusse and richardlau May 15, 2026
@sxa sxa requested review from abmusse and richardlau May 15, 2026 11:28
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Since sections have been removed/renamed please also update the links at the top of the file.

Comment thread ansible/MANUAL_STEPS.md Outdated
Comment thread ansible/MANUAL_STEPS.md Outdated
Comment thread ansible/MANUAL_STEPS.md
What you do need to install manually is **ccache**
You may need to set up the AIX toolbox if it is not configured by default by
your provider, and potentially update python and pip to allow ansible to
communicate with it properly (`dnf install python3-pip` will often be enough)
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python3-pip should be being installed via the playbook.
There may be packages such as python3-dnf (needed for the ansible.builtin.dnf/ansible.builtin.package tasks) which should be done as part of the bootstrap role if not already.

Comment thread ansible/MANUAL_STEPS.md Outdated
Comment thread ansible/MANUAL_STEPS.md Outdated
sxa and others added 4 commits May 15, 2026 17:15
Co-authored-by: Richard Lau <richard.lau@ibm.com>
Co-authored-by: Richard Lau <richard.lau@ibm.com>
Co-authored-by: Richard Lau <richard.lau@ibm.com>
Co-authored-by: Richard Lau <richard.lau@ibm.com>
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sxa commented May 15, 2026

I'm also thinking that the playbooks should perhaps detect that some of the packages now required have been installed and warn the user explicitly if they're not present - listing them here explicitly:

From the runtimes package:

  • libc++.rte
  • libc++abi.rte
  • libomp.rte
  • libunwind.rte

From the utilities package:

  • libc++.adt.include

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3 participants