Prior to the holidays, there was a discussion on the midrange mailing list regarding the relatively new 7.1 PTF group 99711. Since the discussion included some misconceptions about this special PTF group, I thought it would be good to have a short article about it.
IBM Support document All Groups also reviews this feature. There is an All Groups PTF group for each release. The naming convention is SF99VR1 where V is the version and R is the release. For example, SF99741 is for 7.4.
I’m sure most of you periodically download and install PTF groups that are applicable to your environment. To make it easier, we’ve added an “All PTF Groups” PTF group SF99711 for 7.1. This PTF group includes the latest level of all PTF groups for the release except the Cumulative PTF Package group. PTF group SF99711 was created in August 2013 and lists all 7.1 PTF groups as related PTF groups. Note option 9 (Display related PTF groups) on the Work with PTF Groups (WRKPTFGRP) command displays all related PTF groups.
Since the latest level of each PTF group is downloaded, SF99711 itself will rarely be updated—only when a new PTF group is added for 7.1. But, you can choose to order SF99711 as often as you like and only the PTFs you are missing will be downloaded, along with the most recent level of each PTF group applicable to your partition. For example, if you’re used to ordering a set of PTF groups once a month, you could instead order SF99711 once a month and get all the recent updates. Any PTF groups that are not applicable (contain PTFs for not-installed products) to your partition will not be downloaded.
You can use either Fix Central or Send PTF Order (SNDPTFORD) command to order PTF group SF99711. However, if you’re using SNDPTFORD, you must have PTF SI51438 applied to your partition BEFORE you issue SNDPTFORD to download SF99711. PTF SI51438 contains fixes to SNDPTFORD processing when handling related PTF groups. As usual, install the downloaded PTF groups using your preferred interface (GO PTF option 8 or System i Navigator) and use the WRKPTFGRP command to verify that all PTF groups were installed successfully. After PTF install, the PTF groups should have a status of “Installed”, “Not applicable”, or “Related group”.
• Installed
All PTFs for products that are installed on this system are temporarily or permanently applied.
• Not applicable
All PTFs in the PTF group and related PTF groups are for products that are not installed or supported on this system.
• Related group
The PTF group does not have any PTFs for products installed or supported on the system. However, it is identified in another PTF group as a related PTF group. Deleting a PTF group in this status will cause the dependent PTF group to have a status of Unknown.
I’d like to thank Ellie Streifel from the IBM i PTF team for providing the above information.
This blog post was edited to fix broken links and updated for currency on March 30, 2020.
This blog post was originally published on IBMSystemsMag.com and is reproduced here by permission of IBM Systems Media.