Introduction to Server and Group Management

The N1 System Manager enables you to manage hundreds of heterogeneous servers by using one interface. The N1–ok shell provides a simple command set with which to identify and manage servers, as well as to provision or update operating systems and firmware and to redeploy manageable servers.

Use the discover command to initiate the management of manageable servers. See Chapter 4, Discovering Manageable Servers for details.

After successful completion of the Discovery job, a managed server is identified by its management name. Depending on how the managed server was discovered, its management name is initially set to the server's management IP address. You can rename discovered servers at any time.

For aggregate installation of firmware updates, you can create groups of discovered servers, or managed servers, according to make and model. Create functional groups for the aggregate installation of operating systems, or OS profiles, and OS updates. Managed nodes can belong to more than one server group, so you can create new server groups for aggregate maintenance tasks.

The sections in this chapter describe the prerequisites and instructions for performing server and server group maintenance tasks using the command line. You can also use the View Selector menu, the Actions menu, and server name links in the browser interface to perform the operations that are described in these sections.

For information about the management of diskless clients, see Managing Diskless Clients in Sun N1 System Manager 1.3 Operating System Provisioning Guide.

Identifying Managed Servers and Server States

This section describes the information that the N1 System Manager reports for each managed server when you issue the show server command with the all keyword, or the show group command.

• Name – The managed server or group name. The managed server name is initially set to the management IP address. For instructions on how to change the managed server name, see Modifying Managed Server and Group Information.

• Hardware – Describes the type of managed server. See the Sun System Handbook documentation for your managed server.

• Hardware Health – The status for attributes such as memory, processor information, and Network Interface Card (NIC) information.

• Power – Power status for the managed server.

• OS Usage – If an OS profile is loaded, the OS name appears here.

• OS Resource Health – If an OS profile is loaded, the OS state appears here if monitoring is enabled.

• Jobs – If a job is in progress or has completed on the managed server, the job ID appears here.

Managed Server Power States

Server power is indicated by the following states:

• On – The managed server is powered on and running.

• Standby – The managed server is powered off but still responsive to commands, for example, start.

• Unknown – The managed server is not returning any power status information.

• Unreachable – The managed server cannot be contacted for power status information.

Hardware Health States

The hardware health of managed servers is indicated by the following states:

• Good – The managed server hardware is working properly.

• Unreachable – The managed server cannot be contacted for information about the status of hardware health. This state is most often caused by a network problem.

• Warning Failure – A potential or impending fault condition has been detected on the managed server. Take action to prevent the problem from becoming more serious. See Monitoring Threshold Values for information about hardware sensor threshold values.

• Critical Failure – A fault condition has occurred on the managed server. Corrective action is required.

• Nonrecoverable Failure – The managed server has completely failed. Recovery is not possible.

• Unknown – The managed server is not returning any hardware health status.

• Offline – The server is not managed.

Supported Actions on Managed Servers

The following aggregate server actions are supported:

• Starting, stopping, and resetting power.

• Listing and refreshing server data.

• Loading managed servers with OS profiles, updates, and firmware. See Sun N1 System Manager 1.3 Operating System Provisioning Guide.

• Enabling and disabling managed server monitoring. See Chapter 6, Monitoring Servers and Server Groups.

• Adding managed server to groups. SeeCreating and Maintaining Groups of Managed Servers.

• Removing managed servers from the N1 System Manager.