C H A P T E R 1

Introduction to Sun Advanced Lights Out Manager

This chapter provides an overview of Sun Advanced Lights Out Manager (ALOM). The following topics are discussed:

ALOM Features

What ALOM Monitors

Fault and Failure Terminology

Platform-Specific Information

Subsequent chapters contain detailed instructions for configuring and using ALOM.

ALOM Features

Sun Advanced Lights Out Manager (ALOM) is a system controller that enables you to remotely manage and administer your server.

The ALOM software comes preinstalled on your server. Therefore ALOM works as soon as you install and power on the server. You can then customize ALOM to work with your particular installation. See Configuring ALOM.

ALOM enables you to monitor and control your server either over a network or by using a dedicated serial port for connection to a terminal or terminal server. ALOM provides a command-line interface that you can use to remotely administer geographically distributed or physically inaccessible machines, see ALOM Shell Commands.

In addition, ALOM enables you to run diagnostics, such as power-on self-test (POST), remotely, that would otherwise require physical proximity to the server's serial port, see Using ALOM to Troubleshoot Server Problems. You can also configure ALOM to send email alerts of hardware failures, hardware warnings, and other events related to the server or to ALOM.

The ALOM circuitry runs independently of the server, using the server's standby power. Therefore, ALOM firmware and software continue to function when the server operating system goes offline or when the server is powered off.

What ALOM Monitors

This section shows some of the components that ALOM can monitor on the server.

Component Monitored	What ALOM Reveals
Fans	Whether a fan is present, fan speed, and whether the fans report OK status
CPUs	The temperature measured at the CPU, and any thermal warning or failure conditions
Power supply	Power supply status and whether a fault has been reported
System enclosure temperature	System ambient temperature, as well as any enclosure thermal warning or failure conditions
Load	System load (in amps)
Current	Status of current sensors
Voltages	Whether correct voltages are reported
Server front panel	Status of LEDs

Using ALOM

The ALOM software comes preinstalled on your host server. Therefore, ALOM works as soon as you install and power on the server. You can connect an external ASCII terminal to the serial management port (SERIAL MGT) and start using ALOM right away without configuring the ALOM software. For more information about connecting an external terminal, refer to the installation guide that came with your host server.

You can use the ALOM software to monitor the host server in which the ALOM hardware is installed. This means that you can monitor only the host server, but not other servers on the network. Multiple users can monitor the host server, but only one user at a time has write access to the console. The other connections are read-only. Other users may issue commands that enable them to view the system console and ALOM output, but they may not change any settings.

There are several ways to connect to ALOM:

1. Connect an ASCII terminal directly to the SERIAL MGT port. See Serial Management Port.

2. Use the telnet command to connect to ALOM through the Ethernet connection attached to the network management (Ethernet) (NET MGT,) port. See Network Management (Ethernet) Port.

3. Connect a port on a terminal server to the SERIAL MGT port, and then use the telnet command to connect to the terminal server.

When you first apply power to the server, ALOM automatically begins monitoring the system and displaying output to the system console using the preconfigured default account. The default account is called admin, and has full (cuar) permissions. Refer to userperm for more information on permissions.

To log in to ALOM and to specify a password for admin, perform the following step:

At the ALOM command prompt (sc>), type the password command and then specify a password for the admin account. Refer to password.

If you do not log in before ALOM times out, ALOM reverts to the system console and displays the following message:

Enter #. to return to ALOM.

If desired, after you log in to ALOM, you can customize ALOM to work with your particular installation. Refer to Configuring ALOM.

You can now perform some common administrative tasks, such as adding ALOM user accounts. Refer to Common ALOM Tasks.

Fault and Failure Terminology

All Sun Fire servers show two operational states that you can view and monitor using ALOM: ok, and failed. Some servers have an additional operational state: faulty. This section explains the differences between the faulty state and the failed state.

Fault State

A faulty state indicates that a device is operating in a degraded state, but the device is still fully operational. Due to this degradation, the device might not be as reliable as a device that does not show a fault. A device in the faulty state is still able to perform its primary function.

For example, a power supply shows a faulty state when an internal fan has failed. However, the power supply can still provide regulated power as long as its temperature does not exceed the critical threshold. In this faulty state, the power supply might not be able to function indefinitely, depending on the temperature, load, and efficiency. Therefore, it is not as reliable as a nonfaulted power supply.

Failed State

A failed state indicates that a device is no longer operational as required by the system. A device fails due to some critical fault condition or combination of fault conditions. When a device enters a failed state, it ceases to function and is no longer available as a system resource.

Using the example of the power supply, the power supply is considered failed when it ceases to provide regulated power.

Platform-Specific Information

Before you update the ALOM firmware using the flashupdate command, make sure that:

The virtual keyswitch is not in the LOCKED position.

ALOM is network configured. See shownetwork for information about how to display the current network configuration of your server.

You have the proper permissions (permission level: a).

You have a valid ALOM firmware image located on a network-accessible directory.

For more information, refer to the installation guide that came with your system.