Bull Escala BL460, Problem Determination And Service Manual, Page: 37 / 266

Chapter 2. Diagnostics
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Functions provided by the stand-alone diagnostics include:
−
Analysis of errors reported by platform, such as microprocessor and memory
− Testing of resources, such as I/O adapters and devices
−
Service aids, such as firmware update, format disk, and Raid Manager
• Diagnostic utilities for the AIX operating system
Run AIX concurrent diagnostics if AIX is functioning instead of the stand-alone
diagnostics. Functions provided by disk-based AIX diagnostic include:
−
Automatic error log analysis
− Analysis of errors reported by platform, such as microprocessor and memory
−
Testing of resources, such as I/O adapters and devices
− Service aids, such as firmware update, format disk, and Raid Manager
•
Diagnostic utilities for Linux operating systems
Linux on POWER® service and productivity tools include hardware diagnostic aids
and productivity tools, and installation aids. The installation aids are provided in the
Installation Toolkit for Linux on POWER®, a set of tools that aids the installation of
Linux on servers with POWER® architecture. You can also use the tools to update the
Escala BL460 blade server firmware.
• Diagnostic utilities for other operating systems
You can use the stand-alone
Diagnostics CD to perform diagnostics on the Escala
BL460 blade server, no matter which operating system is loaded on the blade
server. However, other supported operating systems might have diagnostic tools that
are available through the operating system. See the documentation for your operating
system for more information.
2.2 Collecting dump data
A dump might be critical for fault isolation when the built-in First Failure Data Capture
(FFDC) mechanisms are not capturing sufficient fault data. Even when a fault is identified,
dump data can provide additional information that is useful in problem determination.
All hardware state information is part of the dump if a hardware checkstop occurs. When
a checkstop occurs, the service processor attempts to dump data that is necessary to
analyze the error from appropriate parts of the system.
Note If you power off the blade through the management module while the service processor is
performing a dump, platform dump data is lost.
You might be asked to retrieve a dump to send it to Bull Support for analysis. The location
of the dump data varies per operating system platform.
•
Collect an AIX dump from the /var/adm/platform directory.
• Collect a Linux dump from the /var/log/dump directory.
•
Collect an Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM) dump from the IVM-managed
Escala BL460 blade server through the Manage Dumps task in the IVM console.