HP-UX Virtual Partitions Administrator Guide - Hewlett Packard

nPartition Logs
partition. When this CPU is migrated to a running virtual partition, the console will not
accept any keyboard input.
You can do either of the following to resolve the problem:
— From a running partition, reset the partition that owns the hardware console port by
executing vparreset -p target_partition -h, where target_partition is
the partition that owns the hardware console port.
— From a running partition, boot the partition that owns the hardware console port by
executing vparboot -p target_partition, where target_partition is the
partition that owns the hardware console port
If no other virtual partitions are accessible, you must reboot the server or nPartition in order
to regain console input.
• Toggling Past the vPars Monitor Prompt (A.03.xx only) When the monarch CPU of the
server is not assigned to any partition, you will see the vPars Monitor prompt. Press Ctrl-A
to cycle to the console window of the next partition.
On an nPartition server running vPars, all virtual partitions within an nPartition share the same
console device: the nPartition’s console. Thus, an nPartition’s console log contains console I/O for
multiple virtual partitions. Further, since the vPars Monitor interface is displayed and accessed
through the nPartition’s console, vPars Monitor output is also recorded in the nPartition’s console
log. There is only one vPars Monitor per nPartition.
The server chassis logs record nPartition and server complex hardware events. The chassis logs
do not record vPars-related configuration or vPars boot events (PA-RISC only); however, the
chassis logs do record HP-UX “heartbeat” events. The server chassis logs are viewable from the
GSPs Show Chassis Log menu. For more information, see the Help within the GSPs online help.
The vPars Monitor event logs record only vPars events; it does not contain any nPartition chassis
events. For more information, see vparstatus(1M).
Also, for a given nPartition, the Virtual Front Panel (VFP) of the nPartition’s console displays an
OS heartbeat whenever at least one virtual partition within the nPartition is up.
MCA (Machine Check Abort) Logs on Integrity Systems
Description
An MCA is a CPU interrupt that occurs when the CPU discovers that it can not continue reliable
operation. An MCA can result from either a hardware problem (such as an uncorrectable data
error in memory or on a system bus) or from a software error (typically, in a driver). In most
cases when an MCA occurs, the system stops normal processing and takes an OS memory dump
if possible. The firmware also automatically logs data that can be used by HP tools to analyze
the cause of the MCA. On reboot, this data is read from firmware and saved in “MCA logs”.
Two different types of MCAs can occur. On an Integrity nPartition running vPars, the first type
will only affect one virtual partition and is called a “local MCA”. The second type will affect all
the virtual partitions in an nPartition and is called a “Global MCA”.
Location of Log Files
On an nPartition not running vPars, the MCA logs are gathered from the firmware during OS
reboot and saved in the /var/tombstones directory. Typically, multiple files are created of the
form mca*.
When running vPars, logs from a local MCA are saved in the virtual partition that experienced
the MCA. Similar to the non-vPars configuration, these files are in the /var/tombstones directory
of the virtual partition. Logs from a global MCA are saved in the /var/tombstones directory of
Virtual Consoles 35