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Re: EVA serial port (4000/5000), information needed

 
PDP-Fan
Valued Contributor

EVA serial port (4000/5000), information needed

Today I connected a terminal to the UART port of my EVA5000. A lot of interesting things are displayed there.
Since this seems to be an undocumented way into the system.... DOES ANYONE HAVE INFORMATION what can be done through this port? Any commands?

What I want to do at the end is to find a way to reset the battery date in a similar way as it has been done on the old HSG80 controllers.

This would make it possible to exchange the battery cells, reset the expiration date and save lots of bucks!
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"If it seems illogical... you just don't have enough information"
8 REPLIES 8
Uwe Zessin
Honored Contributor

Re: EVA serial port (4000/5000), information needed

The input is with some control characters, but you can crash the current or even both controllers!! Last time I played with it - it was a debugging tool - no management CLI like on the HSG.

There is no expiration date handling on the EVA batteries. All cells are tested with a discharge/recharge cycle from time to time.
If the EVA believes that the batteries are dead - bad luck!

You might dismantle the pack and try to charge the cells will a higher voltage if the pack's electronic does not 'get it', but you cannot tell the EVA to ignore the battery state and present its virtual disks anyway :-(
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Bulent ILIMAN
Trusted Contributor

Re: EVA serial port (4000/5000), information needed

The point is EVA controllers and their battery handling is smarter than HSG's.

Its normal behaviour is to save your money, EVA does not want you to replace batteries unless it is really needed.

UWE's message was clear enough, I just wanted to underline,
Bulent ILIMAN
Trusted Contributor

Re: EVA serial port (4000/5000), information needed

Another note about serial port;

It is just for output, no input can be done via serial.

There is a CLI for EVA controller, but it is not documented in the user guides, and users are not permitted to use. It is just for HP use.
PDP-Fan
Valued Contributor

Re: EVA serial port (4000/5000), information needed

Thanks for your answers. It's true, a CTRL-Z for example lets the controller crash immediately. But that's no problem for me since it is a non-productive test system. I can crash it whenever I like :-)

If I read answers like "it's reserved for HP technicians" then I'm interested even more in finding out how it works. HP technicians are no magicians, if they can do something, I can do that too. I just have to find out how... that's the difference.

I will let you know if I find something.
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"If it seems illogical... you just don't have enough information"
Bulent ILIMAN
Trusted Contributor

Re: EVA serial port (4000/5000), information needed

of course we are no magician,

the point is we have documentation about what to do and what not.

another point is we have to responsibility to not corrupt customer data but you dont seem to think about that :)
PDP-Fan
Valued Contributor

Re: EVA serial port (4000/5000), information needed

You are right Bulent... life is much easier when you don't have to care about data.

Do YOU have some documents about what's possible with the UART port?
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"If it seems illogical... you just don't have enough information"
Louis Henninger_1
Regular Advisor

Re: EVA serial port (4000/5000), information needed

Having retired from HP Field Service, I can tell you generally this port was for gathering outputs directly from the controller, event logs disk status controller status and outputlogs from certain backend tests run from the CV. You can get most of the same information using SSSU. Some of the other information would be put into a event decoder. This port was ALWAYS used at the direction of 2nd or 3rd level Storage support...
PDP-Fan
Valued Contributor

Re: EVA serial port (4000/5000), information needed

Thanks for the information.
We had a little problem while changing an EVA5000 controller. The new controller did not start, it hung after the first few self tests. On the serial port we got a shot menu and had to enter a "C" to continue. Then it worked as planned...
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"If it seems illogical... you just don't have enough information"