Author Archives: Viktor Balogh

Hardware testing with cprop

30/06/2011 – 10:46

In the last post I showed you how to investigate a hardware issue with cprop, a tool for the newer Itanium systems. Now I show you how to start a health test for a specific hardware component. These health test options are only enabled in cprop if the specific component supports health test. First we [...]

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cstm not supported on Tukwila Blades

28/06/2011 – 10:12

The newer HP blade servers based on a ‘i2′ processor like the BL860c i2 cannot be queried with the cstm command. For this matter there is a new tool called cprop available. cprop gives you information about various hardware, software and network components. Here’s the syntax: # /opt/propplus/bin/cprop command [option] And here is a list [...]

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CDE Tricks pt II. – Making the screen saver to your own desktop session

24/06/2011 – 09:58

If you want make your custom built screensaver to be usable only by you, here is the way how to do it: 1) Copy the screen saver example to $HOME/dtscreen # cp -r /usr/dt/examples/dtscreen $HOME/dtscreen # cd $HOME/dtscreen

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CDE Tricks pt I. – Making the screen saver available to all users

21/06/2011 – 13:51

In the last post I showed you a way to create your own customized screen saver under CDE. Now it’s time to get your freshly compiled screensaver to get into the selection list. You must be root to make the screen saver available to all users. This example assumes you are building ‘screensaver’ directly in [...]

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Add a custom screensaver to CDE

17/06/2011 – 13:25

The Common Desktop Environment (CDE) has many screensavers for use, you can select which you like the most from the Style Manager Screen menu. There is the screen saver action definition, which describes each screen saver for the desktop environment, it is a metadata which contains the short name of the screensaver and the command [...]

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Crash dump analysis with crashinfo

14/06/2011 – 11:16

If the system becomes uncontrollable, the last resort is to push the TOC button or run the TC command from the GSP. This will cause the system to generate a crash dump under /var/adm/crash. By analyzing this dump one can find out the cause of the system hang. You can get a basic crash dump [...]

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iLO 3 Shared Network Port limitation

09/06/2011 – 11:36

It is very common to have port shortage in a datacenter, so a dedicated management port isn’t always a doable solution. There is some good news for iLO users: from version 1.60 onwards, iLO is able to use the system NIC for management purposes. You can set it in the following menu: As you can [...]

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Howto: HP BladeSystem Onboard Administrator inventory report

06/06/2011 – 11:12

In the IT field it might be especially complicated to draw up an inventory: you must squeeze yourself into dusty gaps of servers to read the part number. Sometimes you must disassemble some machines to get the serial number, which in case of a 24/7 system is impossible! So here is the way you can [...]

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Understanding the server model numbering

02/06/2011 – 14:49

There are many hints hidden behind a server model number, here is a quick help to find some of these. The name of a rack-mountable server always starts with either “rp….” or “rx….”. That is what the “r” shows you: its meant to operate in a rack. The second character shows the platform: p stands [...]

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Displaying the 32-bit System UUID Number

30/05/2011 – 14:45

While you’re at the management port, this is how you can display the system’s 32-bit UUID number: MP:CM> id Retrieving the stable complex configuration portion of the complex profile. MP modifiable stable complex configuration data fields. Model String : 9000/800/rp8420 Complex System Name : Original Product Number: A6093A Current Product Number : A9785A UUID : [...]

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