IBM Shark - EMS

[Vincent Fleming]

Illegal Request is a generic SCSI error that indicates that the disk (or array, in your case) didn't understand a message sent to it.

The usual cause is monitoring software for some other unit (such as VA7400, XP512, FC60) is running on your host, and it's trying to ask the Shark for status or something. The IBM is rejecting the request.

Look for something that runs at that time of day (in crontab) to try to isolate which utility is causing the error.

Otherwise, I wouldn't really worry about the error - it doesn't mean much.

My sympathies on having to use a Shark!

Good luck!

[John Payne_2]

It's problibly better not to monitor the shark disks from EMS. (What happens if the machine can suddenly see ALL the disks? EMS will go bonkers trying to communicate.) It's problibly better to use the IBM ESS Expert to watch your disks. (No sense impacting the performance of your HP box...)

Hope it helps

John

[martyatpb]

Tim,

I have seen a similar problem. There have been some timing issues with the Shark, from what I understand.

I was seeing similar EMS errors on the same lun at the same time of day. I ended upswapping the primary and alternate paths for that lun and the problem vanished.
It's an easy enough change with low impact.

MP

[Gene Crowley · Accepted solution]

Tim,
EMS and ESS Sharks do not play together nicely. You can use to the following to disable monitoring of the Shark from EMS:

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Document Information Table
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PROBLEM
With EMS (Event Monitoring Service) activated, a disk is reporting an
error. It will be several days until this disk can be replaced.

How can the reporting of the error messages to the logs be stopped
until the disk is replaced?


CONFIGURATION
Operating System - HP-UX
Version - 11.11, 11.00, 10.20
Subsystem - EMS 3.20
STM (Support Tools Manager) Version A.22.00 (IPR0009) or
Newer

RESOLUTION
****************** DISABLE EMS BY HARDWARE INSTANCE ******************

Disable an EMS HW monitor for a single instance (enabled in IPR0009)

The startmon_client program reads the file:

/var/stm/data/tools/monitor/disabled_instances

The above file is read before the *.sapcfg file is read, and so there
is no startup of the monitor for the specific instance listed in the
disabled_instances file.

The disabled_instances file is a text file with each fully qualified
instance listed, one instance per line. In addition, wildcards can be
used in the instance names to specify more than more instance. For
example: /storage/events/disks/default/* could be used to specify
all the instances associated with the default disk resource names.

For those instances listed in the disabled_instances file, no monitoring

requests will show up in the list displayed by the monconfig "C)heck
monitoring" command.

NOTE: This does not mean that the monitor will stop polling
the device. It just means that any events will not be
forwarded to the log files, based on information in the
*.sapcfg files.

In order to use the disabled_instances file, the user must perform the
following:

1. Run monconfig K)ill monitoring.

2. With editor of your choice, Add/delete/modify instances at
/var/stm/data/tools/monitor/disabled_instances.

3. Run monconfig; select the "E)nable Monitoring" command.

4. Wait for monitoring to be re-enabled.

5. Do a C)heck monitors.

The resource class that was disabled should show up in the
list with no description of what to do with events. (ie.
There are no monitoring requests.)

NOTE: The PSM (Peripheral Status Monitor) associated with the
event monitor cannot be disabled via this technique. This
ONLY disables the event monitor.


,Gene