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Re: RX2800 - Clean shutdown of OpenVMS when power button tapped.

 
Brian Reiter
Valued Contributor

RX2800 - Clean shutdown of OpenVMS when power button tapped.

Hi Folks,

 

On the RX2800 (OpenVMS 8-4 fully patched), tapping the power button (assuming the system is running) results in a clean shutdown of OpenVMS. Does anyone know if this can be tapped into so that a clean application shutdown could be done as well?

 

cheers

 

Brian

14 REPLIES 14
Steven Schweda
Honored Contributor

Re: RX2800 - Clean shutdown of OpenVMS when power button tapped.

 
Brian Reiter
Valued Contributor

Re: RX2800 - Clean shutdown of OpenVMS when power button tapped.

Hi Steven,

 

I did, but I couldn't see any evidence of it being called as part of the shutdown procedure invked when the power button was pressed.

 

I'm going to keep digging but was was wondering if someone else has tried this.

 

cheers

 

Brian

Steven Schweda
Honored Contributor

Re: RX2800 - Clean shutdown of OpenVMS when power button tapped.

 
Hoff
Honored Contributor

Re: RX2800 - Clean shutdown of OpenVMS when power button tapped.

AFAIK, the front power button does not call the OpenVMS shutdown routines. 

 

I'd expect the front-panel power button powers off the box.  Hard.

 

VMS itself is fairly tolerant of a hard shutdown (and which is related to why its I/O processing tends to be much slower than other operating systems), but various applications may not be quite so tolerant.

 

If there were a front-power shutdown event arriving at OpenVMS, then that processing would call SHUTDOWN or analogous, and that would call SYSHUTDWN and related, and you'd have already found evidence of that invocation in the operator logs (eg: the usual OPCOM chatter during a controlled shutdown) and the accounting data, among other places.  Or there'd be documentation in parallel to the existing SHUTDOWN documentation for this path.  There'd be some information around this shutdown sequencing somewhere in the docs.  Or in the HP IA64 Core Hardware Monitor (Events) or WBEM documentation.  Or in the recent Power Management documentation, or near the CPU_POWER_MGMT/CPU_POWER_THRSH parameters.  

 

And there isn't.  

 

 Googling the core manuals for "SYSHUTDWN", "button" or analogous finds nothing.  (Well, a few references and a doc bug or two, but nothing about a controlled front-panel-initiated server shutdown.)

 

If you want the official answer here of course, please ring up the HP support center and ask.

 

 

Brian Reiter
Valued Contributor

Re: RX2800 - Clean shutdown of OpenVMS when power button tapped.

Hi Hoff,

 

From what I've seen it looks as though the SMHANDLER process gets the message that the power button has been pressed and released (a single tap) and issues the shutdown command. The logs certainly support this.

 

The gracefull shutdown is described here. (bottom of page 85). As stated in the manual anything less than 4 seconds triggers a clean (graceful) shutdown. I'm just curiious as to whether nor not I can easily tap into this.

 

cheers

 

Brian

 

 

Hoff
Honored Contributor

Re: RX2800 - Clean shutdown of OpenVMS when power button tapped.

Call HP support, and ask for the official answer.

 

I'd expect that a "normal" SHUTDOWN.COM shutdown sequence (only on V8.3-1H1 MANAGE V2.0 and later) would invoke SYSHUTDWN_0010.COM and would then invoke SYSHUTDWN.COM as part of its normal processing, or that there'd be OpenVMS documentation around that documented the variant shutdown path processing for the front-panel button.

 

It would not surprise me to learn that the cited soft power-off text in that rx2800 manual refers to Microsoft Windows and to operating systems that have implemented the feature; that the hardware team's "aspirational" support for this feature within the operating systems was what was documented there.  Not, um, reality.  

 

(And while I have a test server available, I don't have an rx2800 available for "target practice" testing.)

 

Volker Halle
Honored Contributor

Re: RX2800 - Clean shutdown of OpenVMS when power button tapped.

Brian,

 

according to the OpenVMS Alpha sources listings (module [SMDRIVER]SMHANDLER), the following shutdown command would be issued from routine shutdown_system:

 

@SYS$SYSTEM:SHUTDOWN 2  YES NO LATER NO POWER_OFF

 

This command has parameters P4 and P5 in the wrong order ! P4 should be "YES" for invocation of SYSHUTDWN.COM and P5 should be "LATER". And "POWER_OFF" should be P7, i.e. P6 is missing at all (should be "NO" for no automatic reboot).

 

You should maybe search in your copy of SYS$SYSTEM:SYS$SMHANDLER.EXE for the SHUTDOWN command parameters used in your OpenVMS version.

 

Volker.

Brian Reiter
Valued Contributor

Re: RX2800 - Clean shutdown of OpenVMS when power button tapped.

Hi Volker,

 

I'd already tried that, I can see the error messages the process outputs when it detects the event but I can't see the construction of the command line.

 

This is the start of what I get in the log

 

SYS$SYSROOT:[SYSMGR]SYS$SMHANDLER.LOG;52

$ Set NoOn
$ VERIFY = F$VERIFY(F$TRNLNM("SYLOGIN_VERIFY"))
12-DEC-2011 11:59:58.30 %SMHANDLER-S-STARTUP, server management event handler st
artup
12-DEC-2011 11:59:58.30 ASTs queued, waiting for event....
12-DEC-2011 12:00:36.59 *** In Fatal AST routine
12-DEC-2011 12:00:36.59 Event Mask = 40000
12-DEC-2011 12:00:36.59 Starting system shutdown....
12-DEC-2011 12:00:36.59 lib$spawn status = 1
12-DEC-2011 12:00:36.59 AST routine complete...


        SHUTDOWN -- Perform an Orderly System Shutdown
                    on node CATA1


%SHUTDOWN-I-OPERATOR, this terminal is now an operator's console

 

So its doing a spawn, I may have a look at SHUTDOWN.COM and verify what is being passed.

 

cheers

 

Brian.

Hoff
Honored Contributor

Re: RX2800 - Clean shutdown of OpenVMS when power button tapped.

That SHUTDOWN command will probably also malfunction if/when the SHUTDOWN$MINIMUM_MINUTES logical name is defined.

 

>You should maybe search in your copy of SYS$SYSTEM:SYS$SMHANDLER.EXE for the SHUTDOWN command parameters used in your OpenVMS version.

 

Use the strings tool.