I’m going to show you how easy it is to use an electronic download process to get your image catalog set up and ready for your upgrade. If you’ve attempted to use ESD in the past and was overwhelmed with the long file names (e.g., B_GROUP1_01_IBM_i_RS_710-00_20100402_204531879.iso) and the difficulty in setting up an image catalog, then this process is for you.
A new API called QVOIFIMG (Fill Image Catalog) was recently created via PTFs for releases 5.4, 6.1 and 7.1 that will find multiple files within an image catalog directory and add them to the specified image catalog automatically. This saves you the time and effort of performing several ADDIMGCLGEs. The following steps will have you ready to continue with your upgrade process in short order:
- 1. Create your image catalog
CRTIMGCLG IMGCLG() DIR() - Follow the ESD process to download your images and put them into
<MyCatalogDir> - Add the images to your catalog
CALL PGM(QVOIFIMG) PARM('' '*ISO' 0) - Associate the image catalog to your virtual device
LODIMGCLG IMGCLG() OPTION(*LOAD) DEV()
By default, the ESD process provides the .iso suffix on each of the downloaded images. The *ISO parameter value on the call to QVOIFIMG will only add files with the extension of .iso to your image catalog and ignore all other files. If you’ve renamed your files, don’t worry, as you can replace *ISO with *ALL, and all files found within the image catalog directory will be added regardless of name.
It’s really that simple. The QVOIIFIMG API documentation can be found in the Knowledge Center.
The PTFs providing this new API are SI39365 (5.4), SI39364 (6.1) and SI39362 for IBM i 7.1.
Hopefully this API will make the upgrade process using ESD a little less daunting and by combining the download process with image catalogs, you’ll have the added benefit of never having to use physical media again.
This blog article was written by Jeff Block. Jeff is the team leader for LP install support as well as a team member of the virtual image catalog team.
This blog post was edited for currency on January 31, 2020.
This blog post was originally published on IBMSystemsMag.com and is reproduced here by permission of IBM Systems Media.