IBM Certification Guide AIX V4.3 System Administration

3.5 Using the lsattr Command

After configuring all the devices in the system, you can use the lsattr command to display information about the attributes of a given device or kind of device. If you do not specify the device's logical name (-l Name), you must use a combination of one or all of the -c Class, -s Subclass, and -t Type flags to uniquely identify the predefined device. The general syntax of the lsattr command is as follows:

lsattr { -D [ -O ] | -E [ -O ] | -F Format } -l Name [ -a Attribute ] ...[ -f File ] [ -h ] [ -H ]
lsattr { -D [ -O ] | -F Format } { [ -c Class ] [ -s Subclass ] [ -t Type ] } [ -a Attribute ] ... [ -f File ] [ -h ] [ -H ]
lsattr -R { -l Name | [ -c Class ] [ -s Subclass ] [ -t Type ] } -a Attribute [ -f File ] [ -h ] [ -H ]

The flags commonly used with the lsattr command are given in Table 13.

Table 13: lsattr Command Flags

When displaying the effective values of the attributes for a customized device, the information is obtained from the Configuration database, not the device. Generally, the database values reflect how the device is configured unless it is reconfigured with the chdev command using the -P or -T flag. If this has occurred, the information displayed by the lsattr command might not correctly indicate the current device configuration until after the next system boot.

If you use the -D or -E flags, the output defaults to the values for the attribute's name, value, description, and user-settable strings unless also used with the -O flag. The -O flag displays the names of all attributes specified separated by colons. On the next line, the -O flag displays all the corresponding attribute values separated by colons. The -H flag can be used with either the -D, -E, or -F flags to display headers above the column names. You can define the format of the output with a user-specified format where the format parameter is a quoted list of column names separated by non-alphanumeric characters or white space using the -F Format flag.

You can supply the flags either on the command line or from the specified file parameter. The following are some examples on the usage of the lsattr command.

In order to list the current attribute values for the tape device rmt0, use the lsattr command as follows:

# lsattr -l rmt0 -E
mode       yes  Use DEVICE BUFFERS during writes     True
block_size 1024 BLOCK size (0=variable length)       True
extfm      no   Use EXTENDED file marks              True
ret_error  no   RETURN error on tape change or reset True

In order to list the default attribute values for the tape device rmt0, use the lsattr command as follows:

# lsattr -l rmt0 -D
mode       yes  Use DEVICE BUFFERS during writes     True
block_size 1024 BLOCK size (0=variable length)       True
extfm      no   Use EXTENDED file marks              True
ret_error  no   RETURN error on tape change or reset True

In order to list the current value of the bus_intr_lvl attribute for the SCSI adapter scsi0, use the lsattr command as follows:
```
# lsattr -l scsi0 -a bus_intr_lvl -E
bus_intr_lvl 14 Bus interrupt level False
```
In order to list the possible values of the login attribute for the tty device tty0, use the lsattr command as follows:
```
# lsattr -l tty0 -a login -R
enable
disable
share
delay
hold
```

3.6 The System Error Log