Diagnosis Guide

SP Switch Router configuration diagnosis

More information pertaining to the diagnosis of problems with the SP Switch Router and the SP Switch Router Adapter can be found in the documentation that ships along with the hardware. This documentation is listed in the Bibliography.

Some basic information about diagnosing problems with the SP Switch Router Adapter is included in the following section for ease of use, but you should also reference the documentation for the SP Switch Router.

Once you have exhausted configuration problems on the SP system, telnet to the SP Switch Router. To do this, you need the system userid (with root privileges) and password. You can open a telnet session from any network terminal screen or from SP Perspectives only if remote logins have been enabled for the router node. For more information about enabling remote logins, see GRF Configuration Guide - Enable telnet access. If you cannot remotely login, you can obtain local access to the router node from its RS-232 terminal, if the user has left it enabled. This terminal is only necessary for initial configuration.

After logging in with root privileges to the router node, there are several commands that are helpful in diagnosing problems. The first of these is the grcard command. Here is sample output from this command as run on a router node with 4 SP Switch Router Adapter cards installed:

# grcard -v
Slot    HWtype  State
----    ------  -----
0       DEV1_V1 held-reset
1       DEVI_V1 loading
2       DEV1_V1 dumping
3       DEV1_V1 running

The SP Switch Router Adapter is referred to as a DEV1_V1 media card to the router node, as you can see it listed under the HWtype column. Some of the common states of this media card include the four from the example, which are:

loading

The media card is loading its configuration information. The SP Switch Router Adapter will remain in this state until configuration information from the SDR in the SP System is communicated to the router node via SNMP. If your card never leaves this state, you should read the section later in this chapter about SNMP configuration diagnosis.

dumping

A media card that has been reset, or is failing, will dump its memory to a file before resetting if the MIB configuration field for this feature is turned on. By default, all SP Switch Router Adapter cards have this feature enabled. For more information on this feature see the GRF publications.

held-reset

This is the state that the SP Switch Router Adapter will be in if the grreset -h (discussed later) command has been issued on it. This state is also present if the card has been put in a reset state from the SP System with the enadmin command. For more information about the enadmin command, refer to PSSP: Command and Technical Reference.

running

This is the normal active state of the SP Switch Router Adapter.

Another useful command on the router node is the grreset command. Use this command to reset the SP Switch Router Adapter. When this is done, configuration information for the adapter is loaded from the control board on the router node. It is like rebooting the adapter. For more complete information about the grreset command, see GRF Reference Guide.

The grconslog command is useful in diagnosing problems on the router node. This command opens and displays the console log for the router node. Here you can see all configuration and network activity on the node. The most useful method for running this command is to run grconslog -pdf to open the console log, display information with port and date stamps, and keep the log open in flow mode.

Occasionally, the static file used for this log fills up. In this case, it then wraps or opens a new file depending on how the system is configured. When this happens, it will appear that the flow mode of your console log hangs. To recover, issue <Ctrl-c> out of the console log and start it up again. For more information on this command, see the GRF publications.

The primary use of the grconslog -pdf command is to open the console log and then issue commands from the SP System to see if they are getting to the router node and being run. You can find more information on this in the SNMP configuration diagnosis section in this chapter.