IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 33

August 15, 2022 Doug Bidwell

First up, IBM has tweaked its temporary additional use policy for Power Systems software for migrations to Power E1080, Power E1050, and Power S1024 servers. You can read about it here.

Here is the significance of this. When you do an upgrade, you get 70 days from install to use the systems software for free. That can be extended once for 40 days, and then that can be extended again, once, for 3 days. After that, you have to beg for more if you need more time to do the upgrade. IBM doesn’t care about partitions, it’s the host system that we are talking about. My question is, why does it have to be this wat? Above and beyond the normal 70/40/3, another 90 days would be useful.

Then there are the “donor keys” you have to dela with. When you transfer your users and licensed programs from one machine to another, you have 30 days in which to bring the new machine on line in place of the old. By the end of that 30 days, you need to install IBM provided “donor keys’ on the old system, before they issue you the corresponding keys for the new system. So this adds another level of complexity. But why?

Now for Security Bulletin for zlib PCI Compliance for IBM i 7.2 and IBM i 7.5 in CVE-2018-25032, which you can find out about here. This has to do with zlib before 1.2.12 allows memory corruption when deflating (i.e., when compressing) if the input has many distant matches. IBM i 7.2 fix is SI80203 and IBM i 7.5 fix is SI80205.

Also check out Security Bulletin: IBM Java SDK and IBM Java Runtime for IBM i are vulnerable to unauthenticated attacker to cause a denial of service or low integrity impact due to multiple vulnerabilities, which you can read about at this link. Fixes outlined below:

IBM i Release 5770-JV1	  Group PTF Number and Level
7.5		          SF99955 Level 2
7.4		          SF99665 Level 15
7.3		          SF99725 Level 26
7.2		          SF99716 Level 36

Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level since we last published:

PTF Groups 7.5:

HIPERs (High Impact/Pervasive)
Security
IBM DB2 Mirror for i
DB2 for IBM i

PTF Groups 7.4:

HIPERs (High Impact/Pervasive)
Security
IBM DB2 Mirror for i
DB2 for IBM i

PTF Groups 7.3:

HIPERs (High Impact/Pervasive)
Security

PTF Groups 7.2:

HIPERs (High Impact/Pervasive)
Security

New (or Updated) links added to the ‘Links’ tab in the guide this week:

Nadda

New (or Updated) links added to the ‘QMGtools’ tab in the guide this week:

Nothing

New (or Updated) links added to the ‘ACS_NAV’ tab in the guide this week:

Nary a mouse peeping

Tips/Definitions: It is hot around the Northern Hemisphere. Stay hydrated, don’t overdo it.

The Guide at a glance: There are no new defectives this week (08/13/22). Here is the defective PTF rundown, which is the last defective for each release:

	Defect		Defective	APAR	  Fixing
	Date		PTF			  PTF
	--------	--------	-------	  -------
7.5	06/03/22	SI78809		SE78003	  SI80094 (When available)
7.4	06/22/22	MF69859		MA49739	  MF70026 (When available)
			MF69848
			MF69823
			MF69756
			MF69743
			MF69740
			MF69736
			MF69501
			MF69477
			MF69435
			MF69411
			MF69196
			MF69193
			MF68999
			MF68985		
7.3	06/22/22	MF69735		MA49739	  MF70028 (When available)
			MF68984	
7.2	12/08/21	SI77634		SE73420	  SI78039 (Read the link in the guide!)

Be sure to access the link in the Guide for further details.

Below is the usual archive of the IBM i PTF Guide to help you work through the PTFs in chronological order:

August 13, 2022: Volume 24, Number 33

August 6, 2022: Volume 24, Number 32

July 30, 2022: Volume 24, Number 31

July 23, 2022: Volume 24, Number 30

July 16, 2022: Volume 24, Number 29

July 9, 2022: Volume 24, Number 28

June 25, 2022: Volume 24, Number 26

June 18, 2022: Volume 24, Number 25

June 11, 2022: Volume 24, Number 24

June 4, 2022: Volume 24, Number 23