sys_check, runsyscheck, use_sys_check - Utilities for generating
system configuration information and analysis
[Versions 124 through 126]
/usr/sbin/sys_check [options...]
/usr/sbin/use_sys_check -v
/usr/sbin/use_sys_check -help
/usr/sbin/use_sys_check version
sys_check Options
Lists all subsystems, including security information and
setld inventory verification. This option may take a long
time to complete. Outputs debugging information to stderr
(standard error output). Creates escalation files for
reporting problems to your technical support representative.
This option produces one file, TMPDIR/escalate.tar
unless there are crash dump files; if so, it also creates
two other files: TMPDIR/escalate_vmunix.xx.gz and
TMPDIR/escalate_vmcore.xx.gz. If you use the -escalate
option, sys_check runs with the -noquick option and collects
the output in the escalate.tar file. Optionally,
you can specify a number (xx) with the -escalate option to
define a crash number.
See also the ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES section for
information on how you can set the value of TMPDIR.
Generates Event Manager (EVM) warnings. When EVM is
configured, warnings are posted as EVM events identified
by the string sys.unix.sys_check.warning.
Six levels of priority ranging from 0-500 are used,
as follows: 0 - Information only. 100 - Note 200 -
Tuning Note 300 - Tuning Suggestion 400 - Operational
500 - Warning Produces frame HTML output,
which consists of three files: sys_checkfr.html,
sys_checktoc.html, and sys_check.html (unless you
specify a different file name with the -name
option). This option cannot be used with the
-nohtml option. The following options are available
for use with the -frame option: Specifies the name
to use for the frame files output. The default
name is sys_check. Sets the directory for the
frames output. Used only with the -frame option.
The default is the current directory (.). Outputs
help information. Produces text output, consisting
of one text file, instead of the default HTML output.
This option cannot be used with the -frame
option. Outputs configuration data and the setld
scan. Excludes security information. Outputs only
performance data and excludes configuration data.
This option takes less time to run than others.
Displays the sys_check version number. Executes
only the warning pass. This option takes less time
to run than other options. Executes only the data
gathering pass.
use_sys_check Options
This option displays all the versions of sys_check that
are installed on the system. This option displays a usage
message.
This operand to the use_sys_check utility indicates the
version of sys_check that you want to use, for example,
123. Decimal points are not permitted.
The sys_check utility is a system census and configuration
verification tool that is also used to aid in diagnosing
system errors and problems. Use sys_check to create an
HTML report of your system's configuration (software and
hardware). The size of the HTML output that is produced by
the sys_check utility is usually between .5 MB and 3 MB.
The sys_check utility also performs an analysis of operating
system parameters and attributes such as those that
tune the performance of the system. The report generated
by sys_check provides warnings if it detects problems with
any current settings. Note that while sys_check can generate
hundreds of useful warnings, it is not a complete and
definitive check of the health of your system. The
sys_check utility should be used in conjunction with event
management and system monitoring tools to provide a complete
overview and control of system status. Refer to the
EVM(5) reference page for information on event management.
Refer to the System Administration guide for information
on monitoring your system.
When used as a component of fault diagnosis, sys_check can
reduce system down time by as much as 50% by providing
fast access to critical system data. It is recommended
that you run a full check at least once a week to maintain
the currency of system data. However, note that some
options will take a long time to run and can have an
impact on system performance. You should therefore choose
your options carefully and run them during off-peak hours.
As a minimum, perform at least one full run (all data and
warnings) as a post-configuration task in order to identify
configuration problems and establish a configuration
baseline. The following table provides guidelines for balancing
data needs with performance impact.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Option Run time Performance Recommended At
impact
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-warn, -perf Short. Minimal. Regular
updates, at
least weekly
null - no options Medium, perhaps Some likely at Run at least
selected. 15 to 45 minutes peak system use. once postdepending
on pro- installation
cessor. and update
after major
configuration
changes. Update
your initial
baseline and
check warnings
regularly.
-noquick, -all, Long, perhaps 45 Very likely at Use only when
-escalate. minutes on fast, peak use. troubleshooting
large systems to a system probhours
on low-end lem or escalatsystems.
ing a problem
to your technical
support
representative.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can run some sys_check options from the SysMan Menu or
the /usr/sbin/sysman -cli command-line interface. Choose
one of the following options from the Menu: >- Support and
Services
| Create escalation report [escalation]
| Create configuration report [config_report]
Alternatively, use the config_report and escalation accelerators
from the command line. Note that the escalation
option should only be used in conjunction with a technical
support request.
The runsyscheck script will run sys_check as a cron task
automatically if you do not disable the crontab entry in
/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root. Check for the presence of
an automatically generated log file before you create a
new log, as it may save time.
When you run the sys_check utility without command
options, it gathers configuration data excluding the setld
scan and the security information and displays the configuration
and performance data by default. It is recommended
that you do this at least once soon after initial system
configuration to create a baseline of system configuration,
and to consider performing any tuning recommendations.
On the first run, the sys_check utility creates a directory
named /var/recovery/sys_check. On subsequent runs,
sys_check creates additional directories with a sequential
numbering scheme: The previous sys_check directory is
renamed to /var/recovery/sys_check.0 while the most recent
data (that is, from the current run) is always maintained
in /var/recovery/sys_check. Previous sys_check directories
are renamed with an incrementing extension;
/var/recovery/sys_check.0 becomes /var/recovery/sys_check.1,
and so on, up to /var/recovery/sys_check.5.
There is a maximum of seven directories.
This feature ensures that you always have up to seven sets
of data automatically. Note that if you only perform a
full run once, you may want to save the contents of that
directory to a different location.
Depending on what options you choose, the /var/recovery/sys_check.*
directories will contain the following
data: Catastrophic recovery data, such as an etcfiles
directory, containing copies of important system files. In
this directory, you will find copies of files such as
/etc/group, /etc/passwd, and /etc/fstab. Formatted stanza
files and shell scripts and that you can optionally use to
implement any configuration and tuning recommendations
generated by asys_check run. You use the sysconfigdb command
or run the shell scripts to implement the stanza
files. See the sysconfigdb(8) reference page for more
information.
The use_sys_check utility provides an easy way to set the
version of sys_check used by the system. It is useful when
multiple versions of sys_check are installed on the system.
You must be root to invoke the sys_check utility from the
command line; you must be root or have the appropriate
privileges through Division of Privileges (DoP) to run
Create Configuration Report and Create Escalation Report
from the SysMan Menu. The sys_check utility does not
change any system files.
The sys_check utility is updated regularly. You can obtain
the latest version of the sys_check utility from either of
two sources: The most up-to-date version of the sys_check
kit is located on the sys_check tool web site,
http://www.tru64unix.compaq.com/sys_check/sys_check.html
You can also obtain sys_check from the patch kit, see
http://www.support.compaq.com/patches/.
You should run only one instance of sys_check at a time.
The sys_check utility prevents the running of multiple
instances of itself, provided that the value of the TMPDIR
environment variable is /var/tmp, /usr/tmp, /tmp, or a
common user-defined directory. This avoids possible collisions
when an administrator attempts to run sys_check
while another administrator is already running it. However,
no guarantees can be made for the case when two
administrators set their TMPDIR environment variables to
two different user-defined directories (this presumes that
one administrator does not choose /var/tmp, /usr/tmp, or
/tmp).
The sys_check utility does not perform a total system
analysis, but it does check for the most common system
configuration and operational problems on production systems.
Although the sys_check utility gathers firmware and hardware
device revision information, it does not validate
this data. This must be done by qualified support personnel.
The sys_check utility uses other system tools to gather an
analyze data. At present, sys_check prefers to use
DECevent and you should install and configure DECevent for
best results.
If DECevent is not present, the sys_check utility issues a
warning message as a priority 500 EVM event and attempts
to use uerf instead. In future releases, Compaq Analyze
will also be supported on certain processors.
Note that there are restrictions on using uerf, DECevent
and Compaq Analyze that apply to: The version of UNIX that
you are currently using. The installed version of
sys_check. The type of processor.
The following exit values are returned: Successful completion.
An error occurred.
DECevent or Compaq Analyze may not be able to read the
binary error log file if old versions of DECevent are
being used or if the binary.errlog file is corrupted. If
this problem occurs, install a recent version of DECevent
and, if corrupted, recreate the binary.errlog file.
HSZ controller-specific limitations include the following:
The sys_check utility uses a free LUN on each target in
order to communicate with HSZ40 and HSZ50 controllers. To
avoid data gathering irregularities, always leave LUN 7
free on each HSZ SCSI target for HSZ40 and HSZ50 controllers.
The sys_check utility uses a CCL port in order
to communicate with HSZ70 controllers. If a CCL port is
not available, sys_check will use an active LUN. To avoid
data gathering irregularities, enable the CCL port for
each HSZ70 controller.
HSV controller-specific limitations include the following:
The sys_check utility uses the SANscript utility (sssu) to
collect data from an Enterprise controller. This utility
is included with the Enterprise Platform Kit; verify that
this utility is installed in /usr/lbin and ensure that it
has execute permissions.
The sys_check utility cannot dynamically determine
the SAN appliance or appliances used to manage your
Enterprise storage. To do so, create the file
/etc/enterprise.txt with the element name, the user
name, and the password (separated by colons) of the
SAN appliance as shown below; these values may contain
embedded spaces. Set the permissions of this
file to 600. element:user:password element 1:user
1:password
The sys_check utility attempts to check the NetWorker
backup schedule against the /etc/fstab file. For some
older versions of Networker, the nsradmin command contains
a bug that prevents sys_check from correctly checking the
schedule. In addition, the sys_check utility will not
correctly validate the NetWorker backup schedule for TruCluster
services.
The following command creates escalation files that are
used to report problems to your technical support organization:
# sys_check -escalate The following command outputs
configuration and performance information, excluding
security information and the setld inventory, and provides
an analysis of common system configuration and operational
problems: # sys_check > file.html The following command
outputs all information, including configuration, performance,
and security information and a setld inventory of
the system: # sys_check -all > file.html The following
command outputs only performance information: # sys_check
-perf > file.html The following command provides HTML output
with frames, including configuration and performance
information and the setld inventory of the system: #
sys_check -frame -noquick The following command starts the
SysMan Menu config_report task from the command line: #
/usr/sbin/sysman config_report
Entering this command invokes the SysMan Menu,
which prompts you to supply the following optional
information: Save to (HTML) - A location to which
the HTML report should be saved, which is
/var/adm/hostname_date.html by default. Export to
Web (Default) - Export the HTML report to Insight
Manager. Refer to the System Administration for
information on Insight Manager. Advanced options -
This option displays another screen in which you
can choose a limited number of run time options.
The options are equivalent to certain command line
options listed in the OPTIONS section.
In this screen, you can also specify an alternate
temporary directory other than the default of
/var/tmp. Log file - The location of the log file,
which is /var/adm/hostname_date.log by default.
The following is an example of a stanza file
vm.stanza in /var/recovery/sys_check.*: vm:
vm_page_free_target=256 The following is an example
of a shell script apply.kshin /var/recovery/sys_check.*:
#!/bin/ksh -p cd /var/cluster/members/member/recovery/sys_check/
llist="vm.stanza "
for stf in $llist; do print " $stf "
stanza=`print $stf | awk -F . '{print $1
}'` print "/sbin/sysconfigdb -m -f $stf $stanza"
/sbin/sysconfigdb -m -f $stf $stanza done
print "The system may need to be rebooted for these
changes to take effect" The following command displays
all versions of the sys_check utility currently
installed on the system: # use_sys_check -v
The following command specifies the use of version
122 of the sys_check utility: # use_sys_check 122
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES [Toc] [Back] The following environment variables affect the execution
of the sys_check utility. Normally, you only change these
variables under the direction of your technical support
representative, as part of a fault diagnosis procedure.
Specifies a default parent directory for the sys_check
working subdirectory, whose name is randomly created; this
working subdirectory is removed when sys_check exits. The
default value for TMPDIR is /var/tmp. Specifies the number
of lines of log file text that sys_check includes in
the HTML output. The default is 500 lines. Specifies the
number of files in a directory, above which a directory is
considered excessively large. The default is 15 files.
Specifies the file size, above which a file is considered
excessively large. The default is 3072 KB. Specifies the
minimum amount of free space that sys_check requires in
the TMPDIR directory. The default is 15 MB and should not
be reduced. The sys_check utility will not run if there is
insufficient disk space. Specifies the location for the
sys_check recovery data. The default is /var/recovery.
The sys_check utility automatically cleans up data from
previous command runs. The typical size of the output
generated by each sys_check utility run is 400 KB. This
data may be useful in recovering from a catastrophic system
failure. Specifies the location at which sys_check
expects to find the text files to include in the HTML output.
The default is the /var/adhoc directory. Specifies
the location at which sys_check expects to find the binaries
for the tools that it calls. The default is
/usr/lbin.
Specifies the command path.
Note
This file may be a symbolic link. Various utilities
in this directory are used by sys_check.
Note
These files may be symbolic links.
The sys_check utility reads many system files.
Commands: dop(8), sysconfigdb(8), sysman_cli(8), sysman_menu(8)
Miscellaneous: EVM(5), insight_manager(5)
Books: System Administration, System Configuration and
Tuning
sys_check(8)
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