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How to Enable Host Watchdog Monitoring on Sun SPARC Enterprise Mx000 Servers

Jim Anderson, May 2009

Sun SPARC Enterprise Mx000 servers have a domain watchdog monitoring feature that is disabled by default. This feature is also called Alive Check/Monitoring and allows the eXtended System Control Facility (XSCF) software on the system controller to detect problems and recover when a domain hangs in the Solaris OS. (Note: This information applies to the Solaris 10 OS, which supports these servers).

The following is from Table 2-27 of the SPARC Enterprise M3000/M4000/M5000/M8000/M9000 XSCF User's Guide:

Host watchdog: Based on communication between XSCF and a domain, the host watchdog function checks whether the domain is alive (heart beat or alive check). XSCF periodically monitors the operational status of Solaris OS, to detect the Solaris OS hang-up. When detected the Solaris OS hang-up, XSCF generates a Solaris OS panic on the relevant domain. To enable or disable host watchdog, set the configuration file of scfd driver (scfd.conf) that installed in the Solaris OS of the relevant domain. By enabling host watchdog, XSCF monitors the relevant domain.

Host watchdog monitoring has requirements on both the XSCF and the Solaris domain.

Requirements for XSCF

• Secure mode must be set to ON.
• Keyswitch must be set to Locked.

Requirements for the Solaris Domain

To enable host watchdog monitoring requires changes on the Solaris domain. The driver configuration file /platform/SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise/kernel/drv/scfd.conf controls the parameters of the Host Watchdog feature. This file contains an scf-alive-check-function parameter that must be set to on. Note that the default value is off.

/platform/SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise/kernel/drv/scfd.conf:

# When scf-alive-check-function is set to "on", starts
# the Alive check function by XSCF. If XSCF detected
# abnormality of the domain, OS panic of the domain is
# executed. The default is "off".
#   "on"  : Starts the Alive check function
#   "off" : Stops the Alive check function
scf-alive-check-function="on";	# <- default is off

To enable host watchdog monitoring on the Solaris domain:

1. As root, edit the file /platform/SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise/kernel/drv/scfd.conf and change the value of scf-alive-check-function to on.

2. Reboot the domain.

The host watchdog monitoring feature is enabled on reboot.

For More Information

Here are additional resources:

• SunSolve document (available only to registered users with a valid Sun Service Plan): Sun SPARC Enterprise Mx000 (OPL) Servers: How to deal with a hung or unresponsive domain
• Sun SPARC Enterprise M3000/M4000/M5000/M8000/M9000 XSCF User's Guide (pdf, 420 pp.)
• Other product documentation at http://docs.sun.com
• Sun training courses at http://www.sun.com/training/
• Sun forums
• Sun wikis, such as the Sun BluePrints wiki and the BigAdmin wiki
• BigAdmin Resource Collections, such as Hardware
• Support:
  • Sun resources:
    • Register your Sun gear
    • Services
    • SunSolve Online
  • Community system administration experts
• Events of interest to users of Sun products:
  • Worldwide Developer Events and Sun Tech Days
  • Current Events

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