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DIAGNOSTIC.readme file (February 99)

This DIAGNOSTICS.readme document covers the February 1999 (IPR 9902) release of the Diagnostic/IPR Media for S800/S700 systems (all versions of HP-UX).

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

Overview

The Diagnostics/IPR Media, 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.

The Diagnostic Media can be:

For this 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. However, these patches may be superseded by the time you do your install.

REQUIRED Patches:

  For HP-UX 11.0 (S800 and S700)
      PHKL_17039:Bug fix; support 64 bit registers
      PHKL_17040:Support PCI cards w/ PCI info tool from STM (diag1)
      PHKL_14426:diag2 data corruption on 64-bit sys >3.75GB

   For HP-UX 10.20 (S800)
      PHKL_16189:diag1 change for PCI on 9000 A Series
      PHKL_13873:diag2 heavy I/O log prevents dialogd abort

   For HP-UX 10.20 (S700)
      PHKL_15282:diag1 change for PCI Information tool under STM
      PHKL_13872:diag2 heavy I/O log prevents dialogd abort
For proper operation of the Online Diagnostics (10.20 and 11.0 versions), you must install the above patches 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.

Patch required only if you intend to run the EMS hardware monitors for the Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop Hub Monitor:

For HP-UX 11.0 (S800 and S700):
      PHSS_14577:HP aC++ runtime libraries (aCC A.03.10)

For HP-UX 10.20 (S800 and S700):
      PHSS_16585:HP aC++ runtime library components (A.01.18)
Patch recommended (but not required) for HP-UX 11.00 systems with large configurations (>150 disks) 
For HP-UX 11.0 (S800 and S700):
      PHSS_18742:excessive CPU usage from ioscan(S800/S700 11.0)
(This patch is not in the HWCR or HW bundles on the Diagnostic/IPR Media.)

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 ServiceGuard and LockManager

From the February 1999 release (IPR 9902) onwards, the Support Tools (diagnostics) include EMS hardware monitors and EMS version A.03.00 on both HP-UX 10.20 and HP-UX 11.00.

This version of EMS is incompatible with ServiceGuard A.10.10, which includes version A.01.00 of EMS. It is also incompatible with ServiceGuard and LockManager versions A.11.01, A.11.02 and A.11.03, which include version A.02.00 of EMS.

If you run these releases of ServiceGuard or LockManager, you must upgrade them before installing the Support Tools on the February 1999 (IPR 9902) or newer releases.

On HP-UX 10.20 you should upgrade ServiceGuard to A.10.11 and on HP-UX 11.00 you should upgrade ServiceGuard or LockManager to release A.11.04 or newer.

If you do not upgrade, EMS will silently be upgraded to version A.03.00 when you install the diagnostics; ServiceGuard and LockManager will fail to work if you have any monitored resources. In this case, if you execute swverify or other SD-UX commands, you will see error messages like:

     The corequisite
     "EMS-Core.EMS-CORE,r=A.01.00,a=HP-UX_B.10.20_800,v=HP" for
     fileset "Cluster-Monitor.CM-CORE,l=/,r=A.10.10" cannot be
     successfully resolved.
If you have already loaded the diagnostics and therefore upgraded to EMS A.03.00 and are still running an incompatible release of ServiceGuard or LockManager, you should now upgrade to get your system into a supported and working state.

There is no functional difference between ServiceGuard A.10.10 and ServiceGuard A.10.11, other than support for the new version of EMS and bug fixes. Functional differences for the 11.00 releases of ServiceGuard and LockManager can be found in the release notes.

Older versions of ServiceGuard and LockManager, for example A.10.06 and A.10.07.01, do not provide any support for EMS, and so are not affected by this issue.

Removing Diagnostics

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

           swremove OnlineDiag MiscDiag
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. This problem occurs if you try to remove the patch for diag1: 
  (S800) PHKL_16189: diag1 change for PCI on 9000 A Series
  (S700) PHKL_15282: diag1 change for PCI Information tool under STM
These patches are contained in XR43/IPR9902 and are required to be installed before installing the Diagnostics.

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/diag/
    This site provides manuals, tutorials, FAQs, and other reference material.

    Two complete manuals ("Diagnostic/IPR Media User's Guide" and "EMS Hardware Monitors User's Guide") appear on the Web site and in the two following locations:

  3. In the DOCUMENTATION directory under your mount point for the CD-ROM (e.g. /diagtemp/DOCUMENTATION ). 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 Diagnostic/IPR Media CD-ROM are the EMS Hardware Monitors which are an important new 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 with the Support Tools Manager. Once the monitoring software is installed you simply need to enable it and all supported hardware devices on your system will automatically be monitored.

To enable hardware event monitoring:

  1. Run the monitoring request manager by typing: 
       /etc/opt/resmon/lbin/monconfig
  2. From the main menu selection prompt, enter E(nable Monitoring)
Event monitoring is now enabled.

The default monitoring requests will automatically provide the following notification methods for all monitors:

The Hardware Monitoring Request Manager, 
  /etc/opt/resmon/lbin/monconfig
can be used to customize the monitoring requests and add new ones.
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Last updated: Thu Oct 26 15:42:55 PDT 2000