test

SunVTS 3.0 User's Guide

Chapter 1 SunVTS 3.0 Overview

This chapter covers:

What Is SunVTS?

SunVTSTM 3.0 is Sun's online Validation Test Suite. SunVTS is a comprehensive software diagnostic package that tests and validates Sun hardware by verifying the configuration and functionality of most hardware controllers, devices, and platforms.

SunVTS can be tailored to run on various types of machines ranging from desktops to servers with modifiable test instances and processor affinity features.

SunVTS 3.0 supports device testing in a 32-bit or 64-bit Solaris environment. SunVTS determines the operating environment (32-bit or 64-bit) and initialized the appropriate tests.

Use SunVTS to validate a system during development, production, receiving inspection, troubleshooting, periodic maintenance, and system or subsystem stressing.

SunVTS has a sophisticated graphical user interface (GUI) that provides test configuration and status monitoring. The user interface can run on one system to display the SunVTS testing of another system on the network. SunVTS also provides a TTY-mode interface for situations in which running a GUI is not possible.

SunVTS comprises many individual tests for wide range of Sun products and peripherals.

Use SunVTS to test one device or multiple devices. Some of the major test categories are:

You need to select the proper test modes and options to maximize the effectiveness of SunVTS. This book covers the overall test configuration modes and options of SunVTS. For Information regarding the configuration of individual tests, see the SunVTS 3.0 Test Reference Manual.

Note -

SunVTS revision 3.0 was first introduced and designed to run in the Solaris 7 operating environment.

SunVTS User Interfaces

You can run SunVTS from the following user interfaces:

For more information about these user interfaces, see Chapter 4, SunVTS User Interfaces and the Solstice SyMON documentation.

Figure 1-1 CDE SunVTS Diagnostic Window

Graphic

SunVTS Test Modes

You can run tests in one of two modes:

Not all tests run in all test modes. In this case, the test is disabled and the test name displayed on the SunVTS test selection panel appears lighter, indicating that the test is unavailable for the selected test mode.

SunVTS Architecture

The SunVTS architecture is divided into three components: the SunVTS kernel, the user interface, and the collection of hardware tests. Figure 1-2 is a block diagram representing the SunVTS architecture.

Figure 1-2 SunVTS Architecture

Graphic

SunVTS Kernel

The following activities are scheduled and monitored by the kernel:

There are two versions of the SunVTS kernel:

SunVTS User Interface

The SunVTS user interface is separate from the SunVTS kernel. The user interface communicates with the SunVTS kernel through an application programming interface (API). This gives SunVTS the ability to run the appropriate interface (CDE, OPEN LOOK, or TTY) based on the environment of the system. It also allows the user interface to run on a system other than the system under test.

SunVTS Hardware Tests

Many separate tests make up the collection of tests in the SunVTS application. Each test is a separate process from the SunVTS kernel.

When SunVTS is started, the SunVTS kernel automatically probes the system kernel to determine the installed hardware devices. Those devices are then displayed on the SunVTS control panel with the appropriate tests and test options. This provides a quick check of your hardware configuration, and no time is wasted trying to run tests that are not applicable to your configuration.

During testing, the hardware tests send the test status and messages to the SunVTS kernel through interprocess communication (IPC) protocols. The kernel passes the status to the user interface and logs the messages.

SunVTS has a shared object library that contains test-specific probing routines. At runtime, the SunVTS kernel dynamically links in and calls these probing routines to initialize its data structure with test-specific information. You can add new tests into the SunVTS environment without recompiling the SunVTS source code.

As of SunVTS 3.0, the SunVTS kernel and most tests support 32-bit and 64-bit operating environments. When the sunvts command is used to start SunVTS, the appropriate tests (32-bit or 64-bit versions) are presented in the SunVTS interface.

32-Bit and 64-Bit Tests

Because each test is a separate program, you can run individual tests directly from the command line. When this is done, care must be taken to run the appropriate test (32-bit or 64-bit) that corresponds to the operating system that is running (32-bit or 64-bit). This is done by running tests from specific directories as follows:

Note -

If you use the sunvts command to run SunVTS with a user interface (not from the command line), SunVTS will automatically allocate 32-bit or 64-bit tests based on the 32-bit or 64-bit Solaris operating environment that is running.

If you are not sure which version (32-bit or 64-bit) operating system is running, refer to the Solaris 7 System Administration manuals. On Solaris 7 the following command can be used to identify the application support of your system.

# isainfo -v

Note -

The isainfo command is not present on systems running Solaris 2.6 or earlier revisions.