The IPMI Event Viewer is part of Event Information Tools (EIT) and the HWE software bundle. It is used to display low-level system log information. Event information is generated on the Management Processor (MP), then transferred and archived on the Windows or HP-UX Support Management Station (SMS), or HP-UX by the log acquirer. Event information is also logged on the local system by the ia64_corehw monitor. These tools combined allow collection and review of event data that is much larger than possible in the memory-limited MP.
Both a command line and web-based graphical user interface (GUI) are included in the design for Windows and HP-UX. The interfaces will mimic the log viewer available from the MP, so that new field training will not be necessary.
A customer engineer (CE) could use this tool to determine if any components have failed or are not functioning correctly. A system administrator could use this tool to determine what processors in a given cell within a given cabinet are currently configured and active.
The Event Viewer is part of both the EIT and HWE software bundles. The EIT software bundle setup involves updating the Log Acquirer configuration file, adding the SMS tools directory to the system path and verifying the "eventdef" file is installed. There is no setup required for the HWE bundle. Refer to the user guide for the Command Line Interface (CLI) or the Graphical User Interface (GUI) for details on using the Event Viewer.
EIT Bundle Setup (SMS releases)Perform the following setup steps after installing the EIT software bundle, in order to ensure that the Event Viewer functions properly:
Example: If the password to be encrypted is "passwd123",
On HP-UX:
$ /opt/smstools/bin/encryptpasswd
Enter the Password: <type passwd123>
Encrypted Password: a1b2c3d4e5f6g7f8g9h
Do you encrypt again (Y/N) : n
$
On Windows:
$c:\Program Files\Hewlett-Packard\EIT\opt\bin\encryptpasswd
Enter the Password: <type passwd123>
Encrypted Password: a1b2c3d4e5f6g7f8g9h
Do you encrypt again (Y/N) : n
$
REMOTE_SYSTEM_PASSWD <BMC name/IP address> <encrypted-password> MP=<BMC Name>,<BMC IP Address>,<IPMI User Name>,<Encrypted Passwd>
NOTE: If the IPMI user name is not NULL, then only the second format should be used.
PATH=C:\Program Files\Hewlett-Packard\EIT\opt\bin;%PATH%
The "eventdef" file is used to decode raw E0 events from IPMI log files and is required for the IPMI Event Viewer to function properly. By default, the file is installed with the software bundle. The file must be in the "C:\Program Files\Hewlett-Packard\EIT\var\data\" directory for Windows and the "/var/smstools/data" directory for HP-UX SMS.
NOTE: If the "eventdef" file is not installed, you must install it from the EIT software bundle.
NOTE: The 'slview -f <logfile>' command does not necessarily have to be run from the log directory: it can be run from any directory, as long as the path to the log directory is specified.
The Event Viewer then decodes the Forward Progress Log (FPL) event logs that are created and stored to disk by the Log Acquirer.
The FPL log files reside in the path:
HP-UX: /var/smstools/log/ipmifpl_{REMOTE_SYSTEM}_{n}.log
Windows: C:\Program Files\Hewlett-Packard\EIT\var\log\ipmifpl_{REMOTE_SYSTEM}_{n}.log
where 'n' is a number between 0 to (FPL_NUM_FILES_TO_HOLD - 1). (The FPL_NUM_FILES_TO_HOLD <num> parameter is the maximum number of FPL log files that IPMI log acquirer can create per remote host.) For example, the third FPL log file for 'mp1.hp.com' will be 'ipmifpl_mp1.hp.com_2.log'.
The Event Viewer runs on the SMS and is designed to decode events generated on all HP-UX systems that use IPMI for their low level events.
The SMS is a machine used not only as a console to the systems in which it monitors, but also the repository for special tools created for and used by the field for upgrading firmware, running scan tests, and configuring the system. The HP customer engineer will execute the viewer on SMS systems to view a trace of events to help in troubleshooting a problem or potential problem. This tool will be another in the suite that will take over the responsibilities of the cclog viewer as well as the chassis code log viewer in earlier PA7xxx-based SuperDome systems. The SMS machine can be Windows-based or HP-UX server-based.
A key to making the new Event ID codes work is a new database and dictionary. Event ID information is created in the database by the engineers who define the events. Data from the database is exported to a file on the SMS where a local dictionary library is used to associate event ID's from the event logs to entries in the database.
HWE ReleasesThe Event Viewer tool is part of OnlineDiag bundle. It is a standalone binary on the server that can be used to view the fpl logs created by the ia64_corehw monitor.
Originally, the IPMI Event Viewer tool was available only through the command line interface. Now, there is also a Graphical User Interface, or GUI, option available.
The GUI is an enhancement to the existing IPMI Event Viewer tool and displays events to the same level of detail as the command line interface, but through a web browser. The browser connects to a web server on the host where the log files reside.
The web browser can be any reasonably CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)-compliant browser equivalent to Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 and above. The SMS web server for both HP-UX and Windows is Apache.
To jump to your preferred interface user guide information, click on the appropriate link below: