Heart Beat light on HP9000

[Chinedu]

hi
I just got a HP9000 and would want to run RH9 with some firewall apps.
However, whenever i boot the server, it comes on with the run light green and attn light amber. The remote light is also amber. I opened the case and saw the heart beat light amber too. On the chasis, the power light is green.
Now i connect a monitor to the VGA card but there is no response. Could anyone help me to solve this? Part number is A5191-04010.

[Matti_Kurkela]

First, a little bit about HP server models. HP9000 is not a model, it's a very generic term. Basically, it means "something that can run HP-UX".

By doing a search in partsurfer.hp.com on A5191, I saw your server is model L2000 (old designation) which is equivalent to rp5450 (new designation). In HP-UX, there is a "model" command, which in your server reports something like "9000/800/L2000-xx" where xx tells the speed of the CPU(s) currently in the server.

Running RH9 on a L2000 will not work. The L2000 has PA-RISC processors which are very different from anything used on typical PC hardware. You *can* run Linux on a L2000, but you'll need a distribution that's specifically made for PA-RISC architecture. See http://www.parisc-linux.org for more information.

I'm guessing you're more familiar with PC hardware than with HP9000 servers. On a L2000 server, the VGA card is not even supposed to work until the operating system has started up: it is not considered "essential hardware" at all. All the system setup is done through a serial port.

The "Remote" light means that the server is configured for remote console access, either through modem or through a special LAN interface. This is not important at this time. If the Attention light is also solid amber (not blinking amber), there might be a hardware problem and you'll need to check out the hardware logs through the console serial port to see what might be wrong.

There should be a card with a DB25 connector in the 2nd card slot of the server. This is a very special connector: it is not connected directly to the server, but to a separate "management processor" called GSP. The management processor is always running if the server has even a single power cord plugged in: the management processor can even command the server's power switch on and off.

You are supposed to plug in it a short "splitter" cable, which would then have 3 free DB9 connectors (essentially normal serial ports) with labels "Console", "Remote" and "UPS".

You should connect the splitter cable, then attach a null modem cable to the "Console" connector, and then a terminal (or a PC running a terminal emulator: Minicom on Linux is good, Hyperterminal on Windows can also be used) to the other end of the null modem cable. The connection parametres are "the standard" 9600 bps speed, 8 databits, no parity, 1 stop bit.

After making the connection, you may see nothing on the terminal at first. Press Control-B to gain access to the GSP's own command mode. All the GSP commands are only two or three letters long: HE gives help, CO gets you back to the "console mode" to give commands to the OS proper. Familiarize yourself with the GSP, because it's a very important tool.

First, you need to check out why the "Attention" light is on.

If you're using a terminal emulator, this would be a good point to turn on session logging (or "Capture") function in the terminal emulator software: it will record everything to a text file, so that you can paste any interesting messages here if necessary.

In the GSP command mode, type SL (that means "show log") and choose E for Error log. Then just press Enter for "no filter". The error log will be displayed one message at a time: each message is about 24 lines, the default screen size of a terminal.

[Chinedu]

Thanks for all the info.
I dont know much about HP-UX and so that means i have to learn it to do the firewall functions i need it for.
On the other hand, there is the DB-25 male on the 2nd slot and there is a cable too. I will use Hypertrm and get back to you if i have problems. Thanks again.
CH