title: from linux to aix: terminal tricks link: https://onemoretech.wordpress.com/2007/08/28/from-linux-to-aix-terminal-tricks/ author: lembobro description: post_id: 655 created: 2007/08/28 13:48:00 created_gmt: 2007/08/28 13:48:00 comment_status: open post_name: from-linux-to-aix-terminal-tricks status: publish post_type: post

from linux to aix: terminal tricks

Had to go up to one of our AIX boxes today and needed to create a local account for myself and get added to a couple of groups.

Of course, IBM, being IBM, is not satisfied with the tried and true useradd (or adduser), groupadd, and usermod utilities ubiquitous throughout the UNIX world.

No, with AIX you need to use “smit”, a/k/a “smitty”, a curses based tool that uses arrow and function keys for navigation and execution. Kind of like Oracle forms without Jinitiator.

Anyway, the default config of gnome-terminal and xterm worked OK to launch smit, but most of the function keys were unavailable (well, in gnome-terminal using some of them were already mapped to gnome features).

Searched around the Internets and found … nothing. Well, not nothing exactly — just alot of dead ends that didn’t work. Along the way I found a post somewhere that mentioned the “old function keys”. Knowing xterm as intimately as I do from my FreeBSD days, I immediately popped an xterm session and did a Control-LeftClick on the xterm window with my mouse and clicked on “Old Function-Keys”. Then I logged into the AIX box, su’d to root and launched smitty. Voila! All the function keys now worked! No need to use any Escape or Control combinations or anything.

Xterm is such an awesome tool, proving that just because something more than 30 years old can still get it done. Kind of like me.

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