Sun Cluster 2.2 System Administration Guide

Chapter 8 Administering the Terminal Concentrator

This chapter provides instructions for using the Terminal Concentrator when performing administration of Sun Cluster configurations. The topics in this chapter are listed below.

This chapter includes the following procedures:

8.1 Connecting to the Sun Cluster Console

You can perform administrative tasks from a window connected to any Sun Cluster node. The procedures for initial setup of a Terminal Concentrator and how to set up security are in the hardware planning and installation manual for your Sun Cluster node and the Terminal Concentrator documentation.

The following procedure describes how to create connections from the administrative workstation in a Sun Cluster configuration.

Because a shelltool(1) can be of variable size and the connection is made through a serial-port console interface, the console port is incapable of determining the window size of the shelltool(1) from which the connection was made. You must set the window size manually on the nodes for any applications that require information about row and column quantities.

8.1.1 How to Connect to the Sun Cluster Server Console

Open a shelltool(1) window on the desktop of a workstation.

Run the tput(1) command and note the size of the shelltool(1) window.

These numbers will be used in Step 6.
# tput lines 35 # tput cols 80

Enter the following command to open a telnet(1) connection to one of the Sun Cluster nodes, through the Terminal Concentrator.
# telnet terminal-concentrator-name 5002 Trying 192.9.200.1 ... Connected to 192.9.200.1. Escape character is '^]'.
Note -
Port numbers are configuration dependent. Typically, ports 2 and 3 (5002 and 5003 in the examples) are used for the first Solaris cluster at a site.

Open another shelltool(1) window and enter the following command to open a telnet(1) connection to the other node.
# telnet terminal-concentrator-name 5003 Trying 192.9.200.1 ... Connected to 192.9.200.1. Escape character is '^]'.
Note -
If you set up security as described in the hardware planning and installation guide for your Sun Cluster node, you will be prompted for the port password. After establishing the connection, you will be prompted for the login name and password.

Console login: root
 Password: root-password

Use the stty(1) command to reset the terminal rows and cols values to those found in Step 2.
# stty rows 35 # stty cols 80

Set the TERM environment variable to the appropriate value based on the type of window used in Step 1.

For example, if you are using an xterm window, type:
# TERM=xterm; export TERM (sh or ksh) or # setenv TERM xterm (csh)

8.2 Resetting a Terminal Concentrator Connection

This section provides instructions for resetting a Terminal Concentrator connection.

If another user has a connection to the Sun Cluster node console port on the Terminal Concentrator, you can reset the port to disconnect that user. This procedure will be useful if you need to immediately perform an administrative task.

If you cannot connect to the Terminal Concentrator, the following message appears:

# telnet terminal-concentrator-name 5002
 Trying 192.9.200.1 ...
 telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused
 #

If you use the port selector, you might see a port busy message.

8.2.1 How to Reset a Terminal Concentrator Connection

Press an extra return after making the connection and select the command line interface (cli) to connect to the Terminal Concentrator.

The annex: prompt appears.
# telnet terminal-concentrator-name ... Enter Annex port name or number: cli ... annex:

Enter the su command and password.

By default, the password is the IP address of the Terminal Concentrator.
annex: su Password:

Determine which port you want to reset.

The port in this example is Port 2. Use the Terminal Concentrator's built-in who command to show connections.

annex# who
 Port			What			User			Location					When			Idle			Address
 2			PSVR			---			---					---			1:27			192.9.75.12
 v1			CLI			---			---					---						192.9.76.10

Reset the port.

Use the Terminal Concentrator's built-in reset command to reset the port. This example breaks the connection on Port 2.
annex# admin reset 2

Disconnect from the Terminal Concentrator.
annex# hangup

Reconnect to the port.

# telnet terminal-concentrator-name 5002

8.3 Entering the OpenBoot PROM on a Sun Cluster Server

This section contains information for entering the OpenBoot PROM from the Terminal Concentrator.

8.3.1 How to Enter the OpenBoot PROM

Connect to the port.

# telnet terminal-concentrator-name 5002
 Trying 192.9.200.1 ...
 Connected to 129.9.200.1 .
 Escape character is '^]'.

Stop the cluster software, if necessary, by using the scadmin stopnode command, and then halt the system.

Halt the system gracefully by using the halt(1M) command.
# halt
If halting the system with the halt(1M) command is not possible, then enter the telnet(1) command mode. The default telnet(1) escape character is Control-].

Send a break to the node.
telnet> send brk

Execute the OpenBoot PROM commands.

8.4 Troubleshooting the Terminal Concentrator

This section describes troubleshooting techniques associated with the Terminal Concentrator.

8.4.1 Port Configuration Access Errors

A connect: Connection refused message while trying to access a particular Terminal Concentrator port using telnet(1) can have two possible causes:

The port is being used by someone else.
The port is misconfigured and not accepting network connections.

8.4.2 How to Correct a Port Configuration Access Error

Telnet to the Terminal Concentrator without specifying the port, and then interactively specify the port.

# telnet terminal-concentrator-name
 Trying ip_address ..
 Connected to 192.9.200.1
 Escape character is '^]'.
 [you may have to enter a RETURN to see the following prompts]

 Rotaries Defined:
       cli                              -

 Enter Annex port name or number: 2

If you see the following message, the port is in use.

Port(s) busy, do you wish to wait? (y/n) [y]:

If you see the following message, the port is misconfigured.

Port 2
 Error: Permission denied.

If the port is in use, reset the Terminal Concentrator connections using the instructions in "8.2 Resetting a Terminal Concentrator Connection".

If the port is misconfigured, do the following:

Select the command-line interpreter (cli) and become the Terminal Concentrator superuser.

Enter Annex port name or number: cli

 Annex Command Line Interpreter   *   Copyright 1991 Xylogics, Inc.
 
 annex: su
Password:

As the Terminal Concentrator superuser, reset the port mode.

annex# admin
 Annex administration MICRO-XL-UX R7.0.1, 8 ports
 admin: port 2
admin: set port mode slave
	You may need to reset the appropriate port, Annex subsystem or
 	reboot the Annex for changes to take effect.
 admin: reset 2
 admin:

The port is now configured correctly.

For more information about the Terminal Concentrator administrative commands, see the Sun Terminal Concentrator General Reference Guide.

8.4.3 Random Interruptions to Terminal Concentrator Connections

Terminal concentrator connections made through a router can experience intermittent interruptions. These connections might come alive for random periods, then go dead again. When the connection is dead, any new Terminal Concentrator connection attempts will time out. The Terminal Concentrator will show no signs of rebooting. Subsequently, a needed route might be re-established, only to disappear again. The problem is due to Terminal Concentrator routing table overflow and loss of network connection.

This is not a problem for connections made from a host that resides on the same network as the Terminal Concentrator.

The solution is to establish a default route within the Terminal Concentrator and disable the routed feature. You must disable the routed feature to prevent the default route from being lost. The following procedure shows how to do this. See the Terminal Concentrator documentation for additional information.

The config.annex file is created in the Terminal Concentrator's EEPROM file system and defines the default route to be used. You also can use the config.annex file to define rotaries that allow a symbolic name to be used instead of a port number. Disable the routed feature using the Terminal Concentrator's set command.

8.4.4 How to Establish a Default Route

Open a shelltool(1) connection to the Terminal Concentrator.

# telnet terminal-concentrator-name
Trying 192.9.200.2 ...
 Connected to xx-tc.
 Escape character is '^]'.


 Rotaries Defined:
     cli                              -

 Enter Annex port name or number: cli


 Annex Command Line Interpreter   *   Copyright 1991 Xylogics, Inc.

Enter the su command and administrative password.

By default, the password is the IP address of the Terminal Concentrator.
annex: su Password: administrative-password

Edit the config.annex file.
annex# edit config.annex

Enter the highlighted information appearing in the following example, substituting the appropriate IP address for your default router:
Ctrl-W:save and exit Ctrl-X: exit Ctrl-F:page down Ctrl-B:page up %gateway net default gateway 192.9.200.2 metric 1 active ^W

Disable the local routed.

annex# admin set annex routed n
   You may need to reset the appropriate port, Annex subsystem or
    reboot the Annex for changes to take effect.
 annex#

Reboot the Terminal Concentrator.
annex# boot
It takes a few minutes for the Terminal Concentrator to boot. During this time, the Sun Cluster node consoles are inaccessible.

8.5 Changing TC/SSP Information

In Sun Cluster 2.2, information about the Terminal Concentrator (TC) or a System Service Processor (Sun Enterprise 10000 only) is required during installation. The information is stored in the cluster configuration file.

This information is used to:

Forcibly terminate hung nodes
Implement a cluster-wide locking mechanism which prevents partitioned nodes from joining the cluster

Both these mechanisms serve to protect data integrity in the case of four-node clusters with directly attached storage devices.

Note -

If you are using Solstice DiskSuite, tcmon and quorum will be disabled, and TC information is not required.

The scconf(1m) command enables you to change this information in the cluster configuration file if, for example, modifications are made to this part of the cluster hardware configuration.

For additional information on changing TC or SSP information, see Table 8-1 and the scconf(1M) man page.

Note -

These commands must be run on all cluster nodes.

Table 8-1 Task Map


To Accomplish This...	Run This Command
Replace the IP address/name of a TC	`scconf(1m) -t -i new-ip-address old-IP-address\|TC-name`
Supply a new password	`scconf(1m) -t -P old-IP-address\|TC-name`
Change the port number used for the cluster-wide locking mechanism (TC only)	`scconf(1m) -t -l new-port old-IP-address\|TC-name`

8.5.1 How to Change Host Information

Run the scconf -H command to change the information associated with a particular host. For example, to change a given host's architecture type and specify a new IP address for its SSP (or TC), run this command on all cluster nodes, where -d specifies the new architecture (Sun Enterprise 10000) associated with the host, and -t specifies a new IP address or host name (foo-ssp) for the SSP (or TC) connected to the host:

# scconf clustername -H foo -d E10000 -t foo-ssp

8.5.2 How to Specify a Port Number for an SSP or TC

Run the scconf -p command on all cluster nodes to specify a port number for this host's console for this SSP (or TC).

# scconf clustername -H hostname -p port-number

For example:

# scconf clustername -H foo -p 10

Note -

Multiple hosts may be connected to the same TC, and the -H option only affects the information associated with a particular host.

8.5.3 How to Change the Configuration of a TC

Run the scconf -t command on all cluster nodes to change the configuration of a particular TC in the system. For example, to change a TC IP address, use the following command, in which -i specifies a new IP address (129.34.123.52) for the specified Terminal Concentrator (or SSP), and -l specifies a new port (8) used for locking purposes in failure fencing:

# scconf clustername -t foo-tc -i 129.34.123.52 -l -8

If a Terminal Concentrator is being used, an unused TC port from 2 to n is specified, where n is the number of ports in the TC. If a SSP is being used, a value of -1 must be specified.

8.5.4 How to Specify a New Password for an SSP or TC

Run the scconf -P command on all cluster nodes to specify a new password for this SSP (or TC).

# scconf clustername -t foo-ssp -P
 foo-ssp(129.34.123.51) Password:*****

Note -

If you change the user password on the SSP or TC, you also need to notify Sun Cluster software of the change by running this procedure from each cluster node. Otherwise, failure fencing might not work properly when a faulty node needs to be brought down forcibly by a "send break" from the SSP or TC.