ioscan -k after hw upgrade, and CPU failure

[Francesco_64]

Hi,
in a HP 9000 server with HP-UX 11i,
after an online hardware udpgrade can I do a full ioscan (i.e. "ioscan -fn") to register in the kernel data structures new added devices, so I will be able to see these devices (i.e. a new disk) with "ioscan -k"?

Is also true that if the "S/W state" of a device changes from "CLAIMED" can I see the changed state issuing "ioscan -fnk"?

Moreover what happen when in a server with multiple CPUs a processor fail due to an hardware problem? The system always reboot?

thanks
F.B.

[Eric Antunes]

Hi Francesco,

Execute (I supose it is a disk you are talking about):

# ioscan -fnCdisk

If the hw upgrade went well, you should see the changed disk at the "CLAIMED" state.

All others states report an error. See man ioscan to see other states explanations.

I don't know the answer for your last question...

Regards,

Eric Antunes

[Mohanasundaram_1]

HI,

Not sure If I understood your requirement in its entirety.

You can definitely add a new disk online if it is hotplug/hotswap. ioscan -fn will sense the new device.

insf -e will create the device files for these newly added disks. You can then use these disks.

there are other hotswap components which can be added, CPU is not one of them, if you want to know.

Yes, if there is a problem in a CPU, the system will reboot to preserve the data integrity. If the CPU problem is hard failure then that CPU may be deconfigured in the next boot.

Does this answer your query?

With regards,
Mohan.

[Patrick Wallek]

No, the server will not always reboot if there are CPU issues.

I had a server that a problem with the CPU cache last week. EMS reported the errors and the CPU was automatically deconfigured, but the box never rebooted. It really depends on the exact CPU problem as to whether or not the machine will panic and reboot.

[Deoncia Grayson_1]

After you do a hardware upgrade? If you're speaking a hot pluggable device, i.e. disk... then yes an ioscan -kfnC disk should show the new disk and it should show it as being claimed and if its not claimed then it should show a different message such as NO_Hardware then you may have to do an insf -e to create the device.

[Francesco_64]

Thanks for your posts,
I'll try to explain in a few word my problem: I've to monitor some devices such as CPUs, memory, lan interfaces, and disks; I know that with ioscan I can know if the devices are "CLAIMED" or are in an error status, but the full ioscan i.e. "ioscan -fn" has a heavy impact on the host while performing the scanning, so I would like to use the "-k" option instead.
But I'm not sure if that is reliable when a new device is hot-plugged, or when it fails. And I'm tryng to understand if make some sense to monitor CPUs in that way.

Regards
F.B.

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

ioscan is not a good tool for system monitoring. You are correct in that ioscan can hit a system fairly hard. Also, 'ioscan -k' ONLY looks at the kernel to see what hardware is there so anything new will not necessarily show up.

A far far better way to do it is via Event Monitoring Service (EMS). EMS can monitor almost all hardware on your system and can send alerts via e-mail, SNMP, Openview, syslog, etc. so that you are notified when something goes wrong. By the way, EMS is FREE.

EMS information is available here:
http://software.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=B7609BA

[Francesco_64]

Thanks to everyone , I'm going to study EMS.

Regards
F.B.

[bhoopathi_1]

Hi

Another good/easily available tool is STM (support tool manager). I think this is available as a trial verison in the HP site. This tool generates a "cur" file which can be further analysed for any errors. This warns about any disk/CPU errors or any sort of hardware problems in advance.