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DIAGNOSTIC.readme file (March 00)

This DIAGNOSTICS.readme document covers the March 2000 (IPR 0003) release of Support Plus for S800/S700 systems (HP-UX 10.20 and 11.00).

NOTE: As of the September 1999 release, the name of the Diagnostic/IPR Media has been changed to Support Plus. In addition, the format has changed so that there is a separate CD-ROM for each version of the operating system (HP-UX 10.20 and HP-UX 11.0).

CAUTION You must install certain patches before loading Online Diagnostics (Support Tools). See "Required and Recommended Patches" below. :

Overview

Support Plus, in addition to IPR software, contains a complete build of the following support tools:

The support tools are all contained in a Software Depot (SD) bundle named "OnlineDiag". This bundle is distributed in two ways:

The Support Tools Manager, ODE/LIFLOAD, and (optionally) Predictive Support must be loaded after the Operating System is installed. The EMS Hardware Monitors are installed automatically when STM is installed.

Support Plus can be:

For this March 2000 release:

Required and Recommended Patches

CAUTION: You must install certain patches before loading Online Diagnostics (Support Tools).

This document lists the required and recommended patches at the time of writing.

Patch REQUIRED for HP-UX 11.0 (S800 and S700):

For HP-UX 11.0 (S800 and S700):
      PHKL_18543: s700_800 11.00 PM/VM/UFS/async/scsi/io/DMAPI/JFS/perf patch
For proper operation of the Online Diagnostics (HP-UX 11.0 version only), you must install the above patch BEFORE installing Online Diagnostics. Otherwise, you may see error messages about the missing patches during the installation of Online Diagnostics; you can get further information by reviewing the swagent.log file.

This is a large patch which can take a while to load (for example 30 minutes). It also has the following dependencies (other patches that must be loaded):

PHKL_20674    
PHKL_20079     
PHKL_20016 (for G70,H70,I70 systems only)
PHKL_17038 
PHCO_17792  
PHCO_17556

Patches REQUIRED for multiple CPUs (HP-UX 11.00)

PHSS_21922: s700_800 11.00 STM, CPU & PCI Info tools fix unsafe MP call
PHKL_21420: s700_800 11.00 specify diag2 as MP-safe
Both patches PHSS_21922 and PHKL_21420 are required to fix a problem with the CPU Info tool that occurred on Multiple-Processor (MP) systems on HP-UX 11.00 only. The CPU Info tool was causing numerous warning messages to be logged to the file /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log. The messages logged were similar to: 
mpc_bindlwp: Migrating process 3269 from processor 30 to processor 0!
mpc_bindlwp: Overriding conflicting mandatory binding!
This problem was due to non-MP-safe calls being made when one of the CPUs above 0 was selected. PHKL_21420 is a kernel patch and requires a reboot.

Patch REQUIRED for some configurations of N-Class, L-Class, etc. (HP-UX 11.00)

PHSS_21922: s700_800 11.00 STM, CPU & PCI Info tools fix unsafe MP call
On some configurations of the N-Class, L-Class and possibly other systems, system panics may occur when diagnostics are run. This issue was first reported in the field as HAO scripts causing system panics. The underlying problem is that that the HAO scripts were accessing configuration data using diagnostics, thus triggering the error. For details, see: Patches for March 00 Release. Note that this patch is also required for fixing the multiple-CPU described above.

Patches for diag drivers no longer required on HP-UX 10.20

HP-UX 10.20 no longer requires you to install the diag driver patches for its operation (for example "diag0", "diag1" and "diag2" patches), as of the September 1999 release (IPR 9909). These patches are automatically installed when the Support Tools are installed; a reboot will take place.

Patch recommended (but not required) for older systems with HP-PB bus (HP-UX 11.0/S800 only):

For HP-UX 11.0 (S800):
      PHKL_19321: s700_800 11.00 diag0 cumulative patch
Patch required only if you intend to run the EMS hardware monitors for the Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop Hub Monitor or the Fibre Channel Switch Monitor: 
For HP-UX 11.0 (S800 and S700):
      PHSS_16587:HP aC++ runtime libraries (aCC A.03.13) 

For HP-UX 10.20 (S800 and S700):
      PHSS_17872: s700_800 10.X HP aC++ runtime libraries (aCC A.01.21) [1]

         [1] PHSS_17872 has a dependency, PHSS_17225
             (dld.sl:Purify:Shared:VTable),
Patch required only if your system includes a HP SureStore E Disk Array FC60. This patch is required to to run the EMS hardware monitor (fc60mon) or STM tools for this device. 
For HP-UX 11.0 (S800 only):
      PHCO_19571: s700_800 11.00 HP Array Manager/60 cumulative patch 

For HP-UX 10.20 (S800 only):
      PHCO_19485: s700_800 10.20 HP Array Manager/60 installation patch

Loading Patches

You can load the patches in one of three different ways:

Method 1: Entire patch bundle. Install the entire HW or HWCR patch bundle for your system. Advantages: simple and tested process. Disadvantages: the bundle can be many megabytes in size.

Choose the Hardware Critical (HWCR) or Hardware (HW) patch bundle appropriate for your system. For example, choose XSW800HWCR1020 for a Series 800 system running HP-UX 10.20.

The patch bundles are distributed in the same way as the OnlineDiag bundle:

The procedure for using swinstall to load the patches is described in Chapter 5 of the "Support Plus: Diagnostics Users Manual."

Method 2: Individual patches from bundle. Install ONLY the individual patches required for your system from the HW or HWCR patch bundle described above. Advantages: Small number of patches. Disadvantages: Requires knowledge of SD (swinstall) to select patches (interactive selection or command line selection).

Method 3: Individual patches from website. You can also obtain the patches through the HP IT Resource Center (http://us.itrc.hp.com). A problem with loading individual patches from this website is that a system reboot is required for every patch that requires a reboot (patches to the kernal, indicated by "PHKL" in the patch name, all require a reboot).

Known Problems

CAUTION: Monitoring Changes for disc30, sdisk and disk array devices

As of IPR 9902 (Feb 99 release), there has been a change to the way that monitoring is done for disc30, sdisk and the HA Disk Array Models 10, 20, and 30FC.

Formerly, the "diaglogd exec" programs (pdisc30_exec, pharaymon_exec, and psdisk_exec) handled driver error entries for these devices.

As of IPR 9902, these programs have been deleted and their functionality is now provided by the EMS Hardware Monitors.

If you had customized the configuration files for the dialogd exec programs (disk30_exec.cfg, sdisk_exec.cfg, and haraymon_exec.cfg) you may wish to re-configure the EMS Hardware Monitors to achieve the same results.

CAUTION: Compatibility Problem with EMS-Related Products (ServiceGuard, HA Monitors, etc.)

If you install the OnlineDiag bundle (Dec 99 or later) onto a computer running older revisions of EMS-related products, these products may experience compatibility problems Affected products include MC/ServiceGuard, ServiceGuard OPS Edition and High Availability Monitors. The only critical problems occur with the following versions:

MC/ServiceGuard            A.10.10, A.11.01, A.11.03
ServiceGuard OPS Edition   A.11.02, A.11.03
Support Tools and the EMS hardware monitors are not affected. For complete information, see EMS Incompatibility Problem.

Removing Diagnostics

If you wish to remove the STM online diagnostic system after it has already been installed, type:

           swremove OnlineDiag
NOTE: Executing the "swremove OnlineDiag" command also removes the Predictive Support package.

Problem with Removing Diagnostics (HP-UX 10.20): There is a problem removing Diagnostics and associated patches once they have been installed on systems running HP-UX 10.20. For example, this problem occurs if you try to remove an old patch for diag1:

  (S800) PHKL_17590: diag1 support PCI with subvendor/subsystem info
  (S700) PHKL_17589: diag1 support PCI with subvendor/subsystem info
When you try to remove the diag1 patch, there will be an attempt to rebuild the kernel (required after removing a kernel patch). This kernel rebuild will fail, leaving an entry in the /var/adm/sw/swagent.log file that contains this text (and more): 
      /usr/ccs/bin/ld: Unsatisfied symbols:
          diag1_install (code)
This problem will occur even if you remove the Diagnostics first.

FIX: Avoid the problem entirely; DO NOT REMOVE THE PATCHES. Instead, just remove the Diagnostics (if desired) by using swremove.

Removing the diag1 and diag2 patches is not recommended. The patches are small, their functionality is limited to the diagnostics and OS error logging, removal and installation require that the system be rebooted, and they are required for versions of STM starting with A.14.00 (IPR 9902). In addition, one of them corrects a potential system panic and data corruption problem.

If you feel you must remove the patches associated with diagnostics on HP-UX 10.20 (not recommended), here is the procedure:

  1. Edit the file /stand/system and remove the line containing the word "diag1"
  2. Remove the Diagnostics using swremove.
  3. Now you can remove the diag1 and other patches. (again, this is not recommended).

Getting More Information

You can get more information on Diagnostics (Support Tools) in the following ways:

  1. Once you install a specific stream (e.g. HP-UX 10.20), the Release Notes for that stream are available: 
       Support Tools Manager (STM): /usr/sbin/stm/Rel_NOTES.STM 
   EMS hardware monitors:  /usr/sbin/stm/Rel_NOTES.HWE
   Predictive Support:     /opt/pred/bin/Rel_NOTES.PRED
  2. For the latest information on hardware support tools, such as STM and EMS Hardware Monitors, refer to the "Diagnostics" section of Hewlett-Packard's online documentation Web site at: 
         http://docs.hp.com/hpux/diags/
    This site provides manuals, tutorials, FAQs, and other reference material. Two complete manuals ("Support Plus: Diagnostics User's Guide" and "EMS Hardware Monitors User's Guide") appear on the Web site and in the two following locations:
  3. In the DIAGNOSTICS directory under your mount point for the CD-ROM (e.g. /diagtemp/DIAGNOSTICS ). The files are named DIAG_USR.PDF and EMS_USR.PDF and can be read with the Adobe Acrobat viewer which can be downloaded from the Adobe Web site.
  4. On the Instant Information CD-ROM.
EMS Hardware Monitors

Included on the Support Plus CD-ROM are the EMS Hardware Monitors which are an important tool for maintaining system availability. The EMS monitors allow you to monitor the operation of a wide variety of hardware products and be alerted immediately if any failure or other unusual event occurs. Hardware event monitoring is available to users running HP-UX 10.20 or 11.X (IPR February 1999 and later).

Hardware event monitoring provides a high level of protection against system hardware failure. By using hardware event monitoring, you can virtually eliminate undetected hardware failures that could interrupt system operation or cause data loss.

For complete information on installing and using EMS hardware event monitors, as well as a list of supported hardware, refer to the documents listed in "Getting More Information" earlier in this file.

The EMS Hardware Monitors are installed at the same time as the Support Tools Manager. Once the monitoring software is installed, monitoring is automatically enabled.

By default, messages regarding major warning, serious and critical events that occur on hardware being monitored will be:

All events will be stored in /var/opt/resmon/log/event.log.

To configure, enable, or disable hardware event monitoring, run the monitoring request manager: /etc/opt/resmon/lbin/monconfig .

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Last updated: Thu Oct 26 15:42:55 PDT 2000