How to collect scextended or 1280extended Explorer on Sun Fire[TM] v1280, 3800, 4800, 4810, 6800, E2900, E4900, E6900 and Netra[TM] 1280, 2900 servers.

Asset ID:	1-71-1019066.1
Update Date:	2011-02-02
Keywords:

Solution Type Technical Instruction Sure

Solution 1019066.1 : How to collect scextended or 1280extended Explorer on Sun Fire[TM] v1280, 3800, 4800, 4810, 6800, E2900, E4900, E6900 and Netra[TM] 1280, 2900 servers.

Applies to:

Sun Netra 1280 Server
Sun Netra 1290 Server
Sun Fire V1280 Server
Sun Fire 3800 Server
Sun Fire E6900 Server
All Platforms

Goal

This document describes how to run an scextended or 1280extended Explorer on Sun Fire[TM] v1280, 3800, 4800, 4810, 6800, E2900, E4900, E6900 and Netra[TM] 1280, 1290 servers.

This document does not cover System Controllers (SCs) for Sun Fire[TM] 12K, 15K, E20K, E25K servers, which are SPARC technology based and run the Solaris Operating System.
To run explorer on a SC for a Sun Fire[TM] 12k, 15k, E20k, E25k no additional explorer options are required.

Available for this topic, a Video Tutorial; Brief how-to video tutorials that provide step-by-step instructions answering some of the most frequently asked questions. View the video answer and/or follow the detailed instructions below.
Video - Running sc Extended Explorer (03:30)

Running scextended or 1280extended Explorer on a Sun Fire system controller will collect information from the System Controller(s). The SC has access to the hardware level error and configuration information. The SC has a limited amount of memory to store logs, the logs are lost if the SC is rebooted or power cycled.

A loghost needs to be setup as otherwise some failures are undiagnosable due to critical fault information being unavailable, see Document 1008676.1 'Best Practices' and configuring loghost on Sun Fire[TM] 3800,4800,4900,6800, and E6900 servers.

NOTES:
Extended explorer has to be run on a system that is able to telnet or ssh into the SC.
Frequently, the domain and the SCs are not on the same network.
When this occurs, you might need to use explorer from the domain and scextended explorer from the loghost for troubleshooting purposes.
Oracle Explorer version 6.x and above is recommended for use.
The latest version of Explorer can be downloaded via Document 1002383.1.

Solution

For 3800, 4800, 4810, 6800, E4900, E6900 servers, follow the procedure below:

1) As "root" from a system with telnet or ssh access to the SC(s); Preferably the loghost:

# /opt/SUNWexplo/bin/explorer -w default,scextended

NOTES:
default - runs the default explorer data collection modules on the system, if you only require the SC info omit this option.
scextended - runs the system controller data collection module.
fru - Not shown above because it is run by default in scextended since about 2005 (Explorer version 5.0, RFE 4947881). Causes the scextended module to also collect prtfru_-x.out which includes part and serial number information.

2) When the explorer reaches the scextended module you will be asked to enter the hostname of the SC, similar to the following example:

Sep 16 11:12:03 wibble[3853] scextended: RUNNING
You will be prompted for a System Controller name
If hostname cannot be resolved, please use IP address.
Type return to end the list.
Please enter the name of the SC: host-sc0

3) You will then be required to enter the system controller password.

Please enter the SC platform password for host-sc0:
If there is no password for the SC, just press the Return key.

4) Once the data collection has completed for that SC you will be prompted to enter the name of the next SC.

Please enter the name of the SC:
If you do not want to collect data from another SC just press the Return key.

NOTE: No messages are output to the console during the scextended data collection. If you need to confirm data is being collected check for new files being created or updated in the /opt/SUNWexplo/output/explorer*/sc/ directory.

5) If you need to collect data from a larger number of SCs this can be done from a single explorer by adding the SC hostnames and passwords to /etc/opt/SUNWexplo/scinput.txt

# Input file for extended data collection
# Format is HOST PASSWORD
hostone-sc0 pa55w0rd
hosttwo-sc0 s3cur3

NOTE: If the scinput.txt file has entries the scextended module will not prompt for additional input.

For v1280, E2900, n1280, or n1290 server, follow the procedure below:

The scextended option in Explorer software does NOT work for these servers because the mechanism used to access the 1280/1290/E2900 system controller is different. Beginning with Sun Explorer 5.0, a new module was added to collect information from these system controllers - The 1280extended module. 1280extended requires the ability to connect to the system console over the network. The information collected by 1280extended is somewhat different than scextended due to the architectural differences between the platforms.

To learn how to log in to the SC, please refer to the Sun Fire Entry-Level System Administration guide (for ScApp 5.20.x). This document will also show how to install the LOM software if it is not currently installed.

From the command line run the following command as "root" :

# /opt/SUNWexplo/bin/explorer -w default,1280extended,fru

NOTES:
As mentioned above, the network port of the SC must be configured in order to use the 1280extended module in Explorer.
If there is already an active connection to the SC network port then the 1280extended script will fail. 1280extended requires access to the SC via the network port and there can only be 1 connection so if the port is already in use the script will abort.

The latest version of explorer can be downloaded from Document 1002383.1 Sun[TM] Explorer Data Collector page. Please make sure it is current (version 6.x is "current").

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