kern.log almost empty upon firmware update

[Emilija Pajkovska]

Hello,

We have updated the firmware of the GS80 server form 6.3 to 6.9.
We have Tru64 version 5.1 running in cluster with other GS80 server via memory channel.

Upon succesful update of the firmware, the kern.log doesn't contain starup messages of the OS. It only conains couple of not important error messages. We have checked the syslog.conf file, but it seems ok with

kern.debug /var/adm/syslog.dated/kern.log

Please advise,
Emilija

[Venkatesh BL]

why do you expect the startup messages to go to kern.log?. They usually get logged to the /var/adm/messages file.

[Emilija Pajkovska]

Attached is the syslog.conf file and according to it the logging should be done both in kern.log and messages.

It's not logging anywhere.

[Venkatesh BL]

If there are any kernel debug messages, they would be logged both to the kern.log and messages file.

[Emilija Pajkovska]

I have to disagree with you. When you specify the lower priority - like debug - all mesagges that have higher priority line info, notice, warning etc should be logged as well.

From Administration Manual - "The syslogd daemon logs all messages of
the specified severity level plus all messages of greater severity.For
example,if you specify level err all messages of levels err crit
alert and emerg or panic are logged."

Debug has lowest priority.

Any other ideas...

[Emilija Pajkovska]

The problem was due to too small msgbuf_size. The system had 24GB RAM and only ~16000 msgbuf_size.

We tried with higher values, but the problem was solved with maximum value.

From SysAdmin Guide:
"For large systems with many adapters and devices,the default value might be insufficient,causing messages to be dropped from the /var/adm/messages.
If your system â s boot-log record is incomplete, or if you want to reduce the
assigned value to reclaim the buffer space, use the following procedure to modify the value of the msgbuf_size attribute:
1.Invoke the dxkerneltuner graphical user interface from the command line.
2.Select the generic subsystem.
3.Set the new boot time value of the msgbuf_size subsystem.
4.Click the Apply button to implement the change,and exit from the dxkerneltuner utility."

On next boot everything was OK.

[Emilija Pajkovska]

Solution up