Fixing Notifications From ALOM-based Servers

The ports of some models of provisionable servers use the Advanced Lights Out Manager (ALOM) standard. These servers, detailed in Provisionable Server Requirements in Sun N1 System Manager 1.2 Site Preparation Guide, use email instead of SNMP traps to send notifications about hardware events to the management server. For information about other events, see Managing Event Log Entries and Setting Up Event Notifications.

To ensure that the management server receives event notifications from these servers, configure the management server, or another designated server that can be accessed by the N1 System Manager, as a mail server to receive notifications about hardware events from provisionable servers that use ALOM. This is explained in Configuring the Management Server Mail Service and Account in Sun N1 System Manager 1.2 Site Preparation Guide and Configuring the N1 System Manager System in Sun N1 System Manager 1.2 Installation and Configuration Guide.

If there are no notifications about hardware events from provisionable servers that use ALOM, it could mean that all managed servers are all healthy. However, it is also possible that the management server, or other designated server that can be accessed by the N1 System Manager, has not been configured correctly as an email server, or that email configuration has been invalidated due to other issues such as network error or domain name change.

If an email server has been configured, the problem might be that mail accounts have to be reset. The email accounts for provisionable servers may have been deleted or corrupted, or changes could have been made to the email server that impact its configuration, such as a change in the domain name or in a management network IP address.

To reset or change email addresses used by the management server, use the following procedure.

To Reset Email Accounts for ALOM-based Provisionable Servers

The following procedure describes how to reset email accounts for provisionable servers. Following this procedure enables you to replace previous email addresses used by the management server with new addresses.

The email addresses you reset should be reserved for use only by the N1 System Manager.

Before You Begin

Confirm that the problem is related to the fact that email alerts are not being received for the server. It is possible that the management server, or some other chosen server that can be accessed by the N1 System Manager, has not been configured correctly as an email server, or that email configuration has been invalidated due to other issues such as network error or domain name change.

Before trying the following procedure, verify that email sent from the ALOM server can be received by the designated email server, by configuring an independent mail client, such as Mozilla, with the same mail server IP, username and password. Then use the telnet command to access an ALOM server, and execute the resetsc -y command to generate a warning message. Check if the mail client is able to receive the ALOM warning message. If it is, you do not need to follow this procedure.

See Discovering Servers for information about default telnet login and passwords for servers.

Before trying the following procedure, verify also that the N1 System Manager has access to the designated email server by using the telnet command to access an ALOM server, and executing the showsc command. Make sure the following parameters/values are set as shown:

• The if_emailalerts value is set to true

• The mgt_mailhost variable is set to the designated mail server's IP address.

• The mgt_mailalert(1) variable is set to the email address to which alerts must be sent.

If you do not see these settings, or if you see incorrect values for the mgt_mailalert email address, follow this procedure.

Steps

1. Log in to the N1 System Manager.

   See To Access the N1 System Manager Command Line for details.

2. Switch off monitoring for ALOM-based provisionable servers.

   Set the monitored attribute to false by using the set server command.

   N1-ok> set server server monitored false

   In this example, server is the name of the ALOM-based provisionable server for which you want to reset the email account. Executing this command disables monitoring of the server.

   • If the ALOM-based servers are in the same group, use the set group command to switch off monitoring for the server group.

     N1-ok> set group group monitored false

     In this example, group is the name of the group of ALOM-based provisionable servers for which you want to reset email accounts. Executing this command disables monitoring of the server group.

3. Change the email address for the server using the n1smconfig command with the —a option.

   ALOM-based servers support email addresses of up to 33 characters in length.

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   Note –

   If you manually configured ALOM-based servers to send event notifications by email to other addresses, using the telnet command and the setsc mgt_mailalert command, those addresses will not be changed by running the n1smconfig command.

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4. Switch on monitoring for the ALOM-based provisionable server.

   Set the monitored attribute to true by using the set server command.

   N1-ok> set server server monitored true

   • If the ALOM-based servers are in the same group, use the set group command to switch on monitoring for the server group.

     N1-ok> set group group monitored true

     In this example, group is the name of the group of ALOM-based provisionable servers for which you want to reset email accounts. Executing this command enables monitoring of the server group.