2    Using the SysMan Menu and SysMan Station

This chapter describes the available SysMan Menu tasks that can assist you in administering the system hardware. The utilities work on single systems and on clustered systems. You can run the SysMan Menu remotely from different operating environments, or invoke it as a Web application.

This chapter also describes how you use the SysMan Station to monitor hardware status and to launch hardware management utilities. The SysMan Station is an X-compliant graphical user interface (GUI) that runs under the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) or other X-windows user environment.

This chapter contains the following topics:

The information and examples in this chapter describe how to invoke and use the SysMan Menu and SysMan Station from the Tru64 UNIX command line or from CDE. See the System Administration manual for information on using alternative operating environments such as the Web.

Most hardware management operations require root user privileges but you can assign such privileges to nonroot users by using the SysMan division of privileges (DOP) feature. See dop(8) for more information.

The SysMan Menu also provides the following serviceability tasks:

For information on these feature, see hwmgr_ops(8) and the Managing Online Addition and Removal manual.

2.1    Using the SysMan Menu Hardware Tasks

The SysMan Menu tasks provide you with a subset of the many more hardware management options that are available from the command line when you use the hwmgr command. A more detailed discussion of the hwmgr command and its options is located in Chapter 3. See hwmgr(8) for a complete listing of the command syntax and options. Selecting the help option in one of the SysMan Menu hardware tasks invokes the appropriate reference pages.

When you invoke the SysMan Menu as described in the System Administration manual, hardware management options are available under the Hardware branch of the menu. Doubleclick on this branch to expand it and display the following tasks:

These tasks launch basic hardware management tasks that are described in the following sections. See the Managing Online Addition and Removal manual for information on online addition and removal (OLAR).

The following option buttons (or choices, in a terminal) are available in all the tasks:

2.1.1    Viewing the Hardware Hierarchy

The View Hardware Hierarchy task invokes the/sbin/hwmgr view hierarchy command. The following example shows output from a single-CPU system that is not part of a cluster:

                 View hardware hierarchy
 
 HWID:  hardware component hierarchy
 ---------------------------------------------------
    1:  platform AlphaServer 800 5/500
    2:    cpu CPU0
    4:    bus pci0
    5:      connection pci0slot5
   13:        scsi_adapter isp0
   14:          scsi_bus scsi0
   30:            disk bus-0-targ-0-LUN-0 dsk0
   31:            disk bus-0-targ-4-LUN-0 cdrom0
    7:      connection pci0slot6
   15:        graphics_controller trio0
    9:      connection pci0slot7
   16:        bus eisa0
   17:          connection eisa0slot9
   18:            serial_port tty00
   19:          connection eisa0slot10
   display truncated

Use this task to display the hardware hierarchy for the entire system or cluster. The hierarchy shows every bus, controller, and other components on the system from the CPUs down to the individual peripheral components such as disks and tapes. On a system or cluster that has many devices, the output is lengthy and you might need to scroll the display to see components at the beginning of the output.

The output is useful because it provides you with component information that you can specify with hwmgr command options to perform hardware management operations such as viewing more component detail and adding or deleting devices. You can use the following items shown in the hierarchy as command input:

Because the same component might be shared (for example, on a shared bus), it might appear in the hierarchy more than once and has a unique identifier each time it appears. An example of shared devices is provided in Section 3.4.7.

You can use the information from the view hierarchy command output in other hwmgr commands when you want to focus an operation on a specific hardware component, as shown in the following command, which gets the value of a component attribute named device_starvation_time for the component with the HWID (id) of 30. Component 30 is the SCSI disk at bus 0, target 0 and LUN 0 in the example hierarchy:

# /sbin/hwmgr get attribute -id 30 \
-a device_starvation_time
30:
  device_starvation_time = 25 (settable)

The output shows that the value of the device_starvation_time attribute is 25. The label (settable) indicates that this is a configurable attribute that you can set by using the following command option:

# /sbin/hwmgr set attribute -id 35 \
-a device_starvation_time=30

Understand the impact of the changes before modifying the value of any component attribute. See the documentation provided with a device.

2.1.2    Viewing the Cluster

Selecting the View Cluster task invokes the command /sbin/hwmgr view cluster, directing the output to the SysMan Menu window (or screen, if a terminal) as follows:

                                  View cluster
 
Starting /sbin/hwmgr view cluster ...
 
/sbin/hwmgr view cluster run at Fri May 21 13:42:37 EDT 1999
 
 
          Member ID          State           Member HostName
          ---------          -----           ---------------
               1              UP                   rene (localhost)
              31              UP                   witt
              10              UP                   rogr

If you attempt to run this command on a system that is not a member of a cluster, the following message is displayed:

hwmgr: This system is not a member of a cluster. 
 

You can specify the Member ID and the HostName in some hwmgr commands when you want to focus an operation on a specific member of a cluster, as shown in the following example:

# /sbin/hwmgr scan scsi -member witt
 
 

2.1.3    Viewing Device Information

Selecting the View Device Information task invokes the command /sbin/hwmgr view devices, directing the output to the SysMan Menu window (or screen, if a terminal).

Use this option to display the component information for the entire system or cluster. The output shows every component and pseudodevice (such as the /dev/kevm pseudodevice) that is connected to system. The following example shows the output from a small single-CPU system that is not part of a cluster:

                            View device information
 
Starting /sbin/hwmgr view devices ...
 
/sbin/hwmgr view devices run at Fri May 21 14:20:08 EDT 1999
 
HWID:  Device Special File  Mfg Model           Location
                      Name
------------------------------------------------------------------
 3:            /dev/kevm
28:   /dev/disk/floppy0c        3.5in floppy    fdi0-unit-0
30:      /dev/disk/dsk0c   DEC  RZ1DF-CB(C)DEC  bus-0-targ-0-LUN-0
31:    /dev/disk/cdrom0c   DEC  RRD47  (C)DEC   bus-0-targ-4-LUN-0

For the purpose of this command, a component is any entity in the hierarchy that has the attribute dev_base_name and has an associated device special file (DSF). The output from this command provides the following information that you can use with the hwmgr command to perform hardware management operations on the device:

You can specify this information to certain hwmgr commands to perform hardware management operations on a particular device. The following example of disk location specifies a device special file for a disk, causing the light (LED) on that disk to flash for 30 seconds:

# /sbin/hwmgr locate -id 60 -time 90
hwmgr: Locate request successfully initiated

The preceding command works only for some SCSI devices, and might not work for disks that are part of a managed array, such as an HSV110. However, storage arrays usually detect a failed disk and signal its failure by flashing an amber or red disk error light.

2.1.4    Viewing CPU Information

Selecting the View Central Processing Unit (CPU) Information task invokes the command /usr /sbin/psrinfo -v, directing the output to the SysMan Menu window (or screen, if a terminal). Use this option to display the CPU status information, as shown in the following sample output for a single-processor system.

The output from this task describes the processor and its status:

                               /usr/sbin/psrinfo
Starting /usr/sbin/psrinfo -v ...
 
/usr/sbin/psrinfo -v run at Fri May 21 14:22:05 EDT 1999
 
Status of processor 0 as of: 05/21/99 14:22:05 
  Processor has been on-line since 05/15/1999 14:42:28
   The alpha EV5.6 (21164A) processor operates at 500 MHz,
    and has an alpha internal floating point processor.

2.2    Using the SysMan Station

The SysMan Station is a graphical user interface that runs under various windowing environments or from a Web browser. See the System Administration manual and the online help for information on launching and using the SysMan Station. Features of the SysMan Station that assist you in hardware management are as follows:

Monitoring systems and devices

The SysMan Station provides a live view of system and component status. You can customize views to focus on parts of a system or cluster that are of most interest to you. You are notified when a hardware problem occurs on the system by color changes to icons displayed by the GUI. System views are hierarchical, showing the complete system topology from CPUs down to discrete components such as tapes. You can observe the layout of buses, controllers, and adapters and see their logical addresses. You can see what components are attached to each bus or controller, and their slot numbers. Such information is useful for running hwmgr commands from the command prompt.

Viewing device properties (or attributes)

You can select a component and view detailed attributes of that device. For example, if you select a SCSI disk and press the right mouse button, a menu of options is displayed. You can choose to view the component properties for the selected disk. If you opt to do this, an extensive table of component properties is displayed. This action is the same as using the hwmgr command, as shown in the following (truncated) sample output:

# hwmgr get attr -id 30
30:
  name = SCSI-WWID:0c000008:0060-9487-2a12-4ed2
  category = disk
  sub_category = generic
  architecture = SCSI
  phys_location = bus-0-targ-0-LUN-0
  dev_base_name = dsk0
  access = 7
  capacity = 17773524
  block_size = 512
  open_part_mask = 59
  disk_part_minor_mask = 4294967232
  disk_arch_minor_mask = 4290774015
display truncated

Launching hardware management tasks

When you select a device, you can also choose to launch a command and perform configuration or daily administrative operations on the selected device. For example, if you select a network adapter, you can configure its settings or perform related tasks such as configure the domain name server (DNS). You can launch the Event Viewer to see if any system events (such as errors) pertaining to this component are posted.

See the System Administration manual for more information on remote management options.