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Quick Start
Anatomy of a Monitor:
Controlling and Learning About Monitors

This page tells how to control and learn more about individual hardware monitors, by using the site: http://docs.hp.com/hpux/diag

The "CPU monitor" (previously named the LPMC monitor) will be used as an example.

Getting Started - the Website and the Manual
Getting Details about a Monitor - Data Sheets
Two Names for Each Monitor
Seeing What the Monitor Can Report -- Event Descriptions
History of Changes to the Monitor -- Release Notes
More Info on the Monitor
Verifying the Operation of a Monitor
Controlling Monitors (monconfig and .sapcfg)
Changing the Monitor Configuration
Controlling Individual Events

Getting Started - the Website and the Manual

The first step in learning about the monitors is to:

Look around in the "EMS Hardware Monitors" section of the diagnostics website (http://docs.hp.com/hpux/diag).

Most questions about the monitors can be answered by looking at the pages in this section.

For a quick start, see the Overview of EMS Hardware Monitors

For complete background on the monitors, see the manual "EMS Hardware Monitors User's Guide", available in PDF in the "EMS Hardware Monitors" section. The manual contains chapters on:

For specific information on individual monitors, consult the other web pages described below.

Getting Details about a Monitor - Data Sheets

Key information about each monitor is contained in the monitor data sheets.

As an example, look at the CPU monitor data sheet (previously named "LPMC monitor")

The data sheet for a monitor tells

An alternate way to get basic information about a monitor is from the HP-UX man page. At the HP-UX prompt, enter 
man MONITOR_NAME
where MONITOR_NAME is the binary name of the monitor. For example, for the CPU monitor (lpmc_em), you would enter: 
man lpmc_em
Two Names for Each Monitor

From the data sheet, you learn that each monitor has two names:

For a cross-reference of the two types of monitor names, see the list of monitor data sheets.

The two monitor names may or may not resemble each other. In the case of the Disk monitor (disk_em), the names obviously resemble each other. However, in the case of the CPU monitor (lpmc_em), they do not.

Originally, lpmc_em only monitored for Low Priority Machine Checks (LPMCs), and was called the LPMC monitor. However, when the monitor was enhanced to verify floating point functionality, the name was changed to from "LPMC monitor to "CPU monitor."

Seeing What the Monitor Can Report -- Event Descriptions

A good way to learn what a monitor does, is to look at the list of events it can report:

If you click on the event listing for the CPU monitor, you will see the different events which can be reported by the monitor. A sample event is shown below:

Event 100701

History of Changes to the Monitor -- Release Notes

The Release Notes for EMS hardware monitors. show every significant customer-visible change to the EMS hardware monitors, for each release.

For example, the Release Notes for the June 2002 release describes the extensive changes made for the CPU Monitor in that release.

On that Web page, go to the section named Changes to Individual Monitors and the entry for "CPU monitor" You'll find text that begins:

More Info on the Monitor

Other information about monitors on the diagnostics website:

Verifying the Operation of a Monitor

The FAQs have important information on verifying the operation of monitors:

How do I know if EMS hardware monitors are functioning?

How can I verify that the EMS hardware monitors are working?

Verifying EMS Hardware Monitors is a separate document that explains the process more fully.

Controlling Monitors (monconfig and .sapcfg)

You can control a monitor by using the monconfig utility. As root, enter:

/etc/opt/resmon/lbin/monconfig
The menu is as follows: 
Select:
   (S)how monitoring requests configured via monconfig
   (C)heck detailed monitoring status
   (L)ist descriptions of available monitors
   (A)dd a monitoring request
   (D)elete a monitoring request
   (M)odify an existing monitoring request
   (E)nable Monitoring
   (K)ill (disable) monitoring
   (H)elp
   (Q)uit
For details on how to use monconfig, choose (H)elp

With the monconfig utility, you create and modify "monitoring requests". In a monitoring request, you specify the notification methods for different severity levels of a monitor. In the example below, the events with a severity level of INFORMATION are sent to a text log for all the monitors listed.

1) Send events generated by monitors
     /storage/events/disk_arrays/AutoRAID
     /storage/events/disks/default
                ...
     /system/events/cpu/lpmc
     /adapters/events/scsi123_em
     /system/events/system_status
with severity >= INFORMATION to TEXTLOG /var/opt/resmon/log/event.log
Other notification methods include emailing the error information and generating an SNMP trap.

The monconfig utility is actually modifying the start-up configuration file (.sapcfg file) for the monitor.

Changing the Monitor Configuration

Each monitor has several configuration files you can modify to control the operation of the monitor. In general, it is recommended that you NOT change the default configuration unless you fully understand the implications of doing so. The default configuration has been designed to meet the needs of most users.

Config File Name Function
MON_NAME.sapcfg

(e.g., lpmc_em.sapcfg)

 startup configuration file Defines monitoring requests.

Don't modify this file by hand. Instead use monconfig (described above) to make/change monitoring requests.
MON_NAME.cfg

(e.g., lpmc_em.cfg)

 monitor configuration file Defines general behavior of monitors, for example, the polling interval. On Predictive-Enabled monitors, some parameters are now controlled by the .clcfg file.
MON_NAME.psmcfg

(e.g., lpmc_em.psmcfg)

 PSM configuration file Required for a monitor to have its state monitored by the Peripheral Status Monitor (PSM) -- used by MC/ServiceGuard to control package failover.
default_MON_NAME.clcfg

(e.g., default_lpmc_em.clcfg)

 default client configuration file Used to control the text sent in text messages to specific targets (for example, to Predictive Support) on monitors that are Predictive-Enabled (Multiple-View).

An important use for .clcfg files is to control the reporting of INDIVIDUAL EVENTS. For each event, you can control the severity, enable flag, suppression time, threshold, etc.

default_MONITOR_NAME.clcfg applies to messages sent to all targets. Other .clcfg files control text sent only to specific targets.

To change the configuration:

  1. Look on appropriate data sheets for the name and location of the desired configuration file.

    (Actually, the configuration files all live in the same directory: /var/stm/config/tools/monitor.)

  2. For the .cfg, .psmcfg, or .clcfg files, edit the file by hand with an ASCII editor like vi. The file itself contains detailed information on syntax, etc.
  3. For the .sapcfg file, make changes by using the monconfig utility described above.

For more information on monitor configuration, see:

Controlling Individual Events

For Predictive-Enabled monitors you can control the way a monitor reports individual events by modifying the .clcfg file(s) for the monitor. For each event, you can control the severity, enable flag, suppression time, threshold, etc.

See " Changing the Monitor Configuration above.

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URL: http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/diag/ems/ems_anat.htm
Last updated: Monday November 25 20:24:03 CST 2002