AIX monitoring tracks the CPU, memory, paging, IO, filesystems and error log of AIX systems. XorMon, the open-source (GPL v3) full-stack successor to LPAR2RRD, combines HMC data on IBM Power servers, CPU pools and LPARs with an OS agent in each AIX LPAR that adds errpt, LVM and multipath data, alongside SAN and storage in one platform.

What is AIX monitoring?

AIX monitoring is the continuous tracking of the resources and health of AIX systems, from CPU, memory and paging to adapters, filesystems and the error log, so that bottlenecks and errors are found before applications are affected.

XorMon reads IBM Power data through the HMC REST API, which provides CPU usage and memory allocation for AIX, IBM i, VIOS and Linux on Power LPARs. Additional detailed OS data comes from OS agents running in the AIX and VIOS LPARs. XorMon is the full-stack successor to the first-generation LPAR2RRD and STOR2RRD tools. Per the Migration page, LPAR2RRD and STOR2RRD can run alongside XorMon on the same devices during the move, device definitions can be imported, and the XorMon license is covered, at no extra fee, by the existing support contract of enterprise edition customers of those tools for the same environment size. Performance history is not migrated.

Sources: IBM Power monitoring, updated 2026-11-02, About Xorux, and Migration, updated 2026-07-26.

Which AIX metrics does XorMon collect?

The OS agent collects CPU (sys, user, IO wait) and CPU queue, memory (used, FS cache, pinned), paging space usage and paging rate, LAN and SAN adapter traffic, and filesystem usage.

SAN graphs for FC and vSCSI adapters show MB/sec, IO/sec, latency and errors; LAN graphs show MB/sec, packet count and errors. Filesystem total, used and available space is graphed in GB, and usage in percent; the data is sent and stored once an hour. LVM monitoring presents volume groups, filesystems, disks and the volume ID of SAN attached volumes (direct or via NPIV), plus the storage name, pool and volume when the storage is monitored as well. The agent also tracks multipath status, which needs no extra configuration on AIX and VIOS, and AIX Workload Manager (CPU, memory, DKIO).

Sources: Filesystem monitoring, updated 2026-06-19, LVM monitoring, updated 2026-05-04, Multipath, updated 2026-10-22, and AIX WLM monitoring, updated 2026-06-19.

How does XorMon monitor the AIX error log (errpt)?

The AIX OS agent uses the errpt command as its log source, and XorMon presents the collected logs under each virtual machine or consolidated for all machines under Total.

For SAN (FC adapter) based errors, XorMon adds information that is not in the errpt output: the local WWPN, the remote WWNN and the remote WWPN. XorMon also displays the system log of attached HMC devices, read with the HMC command lssvcevents -t hardware.

Source: Error log monitoring, updated 2026-10-19.

How do you deploy AIX monitoring and get alerts?

An OS agent is installed in each AIX LPAR and sends its data to the XorMon server on TCP port 8162, over connections initiated from the LPAR side; alerts can then be set on any metric XorMon collects.

Two agents exist: the XorMon OS agent for AIX, written in Go and shipped as a single static binary that runs as an SRC subsystem and collects data every minute, and the older Perl agent from LPAR2RRD. The XorMon agent is the preferred one: it collects the same data set with a much lower load on the monitored LPAR, and new features are introduced only in it. An agent can send its data to more than one XorMon server. A single alerting rule can cover selected filesystems or all filesystems on all monitored VMs. Event alerting raises an alert when a critical HW or SW error is detected for a device, that is when the device turns red in the global health status dashboard, and sends a clear alert when it returns to green. Email alerts include graphs by default, and alerts can also go out by SNMP Trap, ServiceNow, Zabbix, Discord or Telegram.

Sources: AIX agent installation, updated 2026-10-27, Filesystem monitoring, updated 2026-06-19, Alerting, updated 2026-10-13, and Alerting integrations, updated 2026-10-22.

Key points

• Monitors AIX LPARs and VIO servers from the HMC and from an OS agent in each LPAR, preferably the XorMon agent written in Go.
• The OS agent adds CPU, memory, paging, LAN and SAN adapter, filesystem, LVM, multipath and WLM data.
• Reads the AIX error log with errpt, with WWPN and WWNN details for FC adapter errors.
• Agent connections go from the LPAR to the XorMon server on TCP port 8162.
• Alerts on any collected metric, free and open source license (GPL v3).

AIX data sources, OS agent and metrics

AIX monitoring uses these datasources:

• HMC
• CMC
• OS agent

HMC provides basic CPU usage and memory allocation.
The OS agent enhances monitoring about additional metrics which are available only from the operating system.
The agent supports AIX 5.3+ and even VIO servers.
If even the HMC is being monitored, then the AIX OS agent data is mapped to the server tree under that LPAR.

OS agent implementation

There is XorMon daemon listening on the host where XorMon server is running on port 8162.
Each LPAR has a Perl-based agent installed. This agent is started every minute from the crontab and it collects performance, configuration and log data.
The agent contacts the XorMon server every 10-15 minutes and sends all locally stored data for that period.

OS agent prerequisites

• Perl interpreter. All Unix/Linux systems contain Perl in basic installation.
• It may run under any user account, it does not need any special privileges in the OS.
• Opened TCP communication between each LPAR and XorMon server on port 8162.
• Connections are initiated from the monitored AIX host only.

IBM Power Systems and AIX monitoring overview

Examples

AIX CPU OS (agent):

AIX Memory OS (agent):

Topology:

Multipath:

Last updated: 2026-11-02