[rescue] AS/400 Ethernet problems

[Patrick Masterson]

We have an AS/400 here in my office that is not connecting to our
network. It has an Ethernet connection to a switch which is on our
network, and the people who use it use the RUMBA emulator on Windows
95/2000 machines to connect to it and do their thing. However, now the
AS/400 is unreachable from the network, and the only way to access it is
via the operator console that's plugged right into it. When the network
servers (*NWS) vary on at bootup, they (and the lines and controllers
and such attached to them) remain stuck in the VARY ON PENDING state,
according to WRKCFGSTS. The switch and all its ports work fine, as does
the network cable from the AS/400 to the switch. The activity light by
the port doesn't turn on when the AS/400 is plugged in, so I think it's
a problem with the AS/400.

The problem is that I've only been with the company a few months, and
never worked on AS/400s before this. The people responsible for
installing it both left the company a few months ago, to be replaced by
me and my boss, and now no one in the company knows much about
administrating an AS/400 at all. (I'm probably the most knowledgable
person in the company.) We all want to get rid of it eventually, but we
need it working until then.

I tried googling for help, but since I'm not innately familiar with
AS/400 terminology I'm not entirely sure what to google for. The stuff I
have found doesn't look like much help, and appears to be geared towards
newer models anyway. I called tech support, but once they learned how
old this thing is, they said it was unsupported and they couldn't do
much to help. The version of the operating system we have is V3R7, which
according to IBM's website stopped being supported in 1999. If anyone
has any suggestions, I'm glad to hear them. If you need to know anything
I forgot to mention, let me know (and, if needed, mention whatever
commands I'd need to know to find out). Thanks in advance.