As UNIX system administrators – we need our Operating Systems running in optimal state every time. The same is what we want to our storage systems. In EMC Powerpath there are a couple of failover policies that we can enforce to our storage devices but we must always use the one that is best suitable. We have here a LUN that is currently under Basic Failover policy even though the storage is CLARiiON:

For any software or hardware issues with AIX, logging a case with IBM – the support team will always ask for snap files. Snap files will collect all system configuration that will help and guide the IBM support team to track whatever issue there is on the system.

Learning the Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM) will be a big help when a System Administrator cannot login anymore to the server. ILOM can be accessed via IP network or serial console. Here are some of the most commonly used commands that could get anyone on track on managing the ILOM:

Managing printer is one of the least task of a Unix System Admin. But printer management is typically easy to get along with as there is just minimal commands and options that we use. Here are some of my trusted commands to manage printers:

Sun StorEdge A1000 is one of the oldest storage array from SUN but still widely used. Just recently, we received a battery expiration and we need this replaced as soon as possible to ensure optimal operation of the said Sun StorEdge A1000 array. Below are the steps that we used to replace the expired battery:

After replacing a defective part on a Sun Fire T1000/T2000 boxes, we need to clear the FMA Faults. There are two ways that we can achieve this task – via the System Controller (SC) or Solaris OS. I usually prefer the path because there is no downtime required but there would be times that we need to do it on the OS side.

Today we encountered a degraded policy in EMC PowerPath disk on one of our SUN/Oracle Solaris boxes. We found out that the license for our PowerPath was not properly installed on the system. With this current issue – our disks is only running on Basic Failover policy which is not recommended for CLARiiON disks. To mitigate the issue, we need to install the license and set the policy back to CLARiiON Optimization Policy.

The product pages for Oracle’s M-Series of SPARC servers are now online! These boxes now include the latest SPARC technology in the name of SPARC64 VII+ quad-core processor. Based from their site:

The last time we discussed on how to access the HP iLO. But we need CLI commands for us to be able to further troubleshoot our hardware. Just like we did for Sun / Oracle ALOM – here are the commands that one can use for HP iLO.

There are times that we really rely on the manual (man) pages when it comes to getting the right options for a certain command under UNIX boxes. But when it comes to Sun/Oracle Advanced Lights Out Manager (ALOM) we can count on with the help command. Here are the commands that you can have with Sun/Oracle Advanced Lights Out Manager