Diagnostic and Troubleshooting Tools

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Why are there so many different diagnostic and troubleshooting tools? There are a number of reasons for the lack of a single all-in-one diagnostic test, starting with the complexity of the server. Consider also that some diagnostics must function even when the system fails to boot. Any diagnostic capable of isolating problems when the system fails to boot must be independent of the operating system. But any diagnostic that is independent of the operating system is also unable to make use of the operating system’s considerable resources for getting at the more complex causes of faults or failures. Consider the different tasks you expect to perform with your diagnostic and troubleshooting tools:

Isolating faults to a specific replaceable hardware component
Exercising the system to disclose more subtle problems that might or might not be hardware related
Monitoring the system to catch problems before they become serious enough to cause unplanned downtime

You cannot optimize every diagnostic tool for all these varied tasks. Instead of one unified diagnostic tool, Oracle provides a palette of tools each of which has its own strengths and applications.

The following diagnostic and troubleshooting tools are available for your server.

Tool	Description	Link
Status indicators	Status indicators (LEDs) located on the chassis and on selected system components can serve as front-line indicators of a limited set of hardware failures.	System LEDs and Diagnostics
Oracle ILOM Diagnostics	Oracle ILOM displays the status of system components. You can then replace a failed component, which often clears the problem.	Oracle ILOM Diagnostics
HWdiag (Oracle ILOM Diag shell)	Oracle ILOM allows you to run HWdiag, a command-line utility that checks the status of system components. Access the `hwdiag` command from the Oracle ILOM Diag shell.	Using the Oracle ILOM Diag Shell
Snapshot Utility (Oracle ILOM)	Oracle ILOM collects information about the current state of the Oracle ILOM SP, including environmental data, logs, and information about field-replaceable units installed on the server. You also can use Snapshot to run diagnostics on the host and capture the diagnostics log files.	Using the Snapshot Utility
UEFIdiag (Oracle ILOM/UEFI shell)	Oracle ILOM allows you to run diagnostics in a UEFI environment to evaluate system components, such as the CPU, memory, disk drives, and I/O cards.	Using UEFI Diagnostics
Oracle VTS Software	Oracle VTS software provides comprehensive diagnostics that verify the connectivity and functionality of most hardware controllers and devices. Oracle VTS can exercise all servers, adding stress to the main components. You can use Oracle VTS on a system running Oracle Linux or Oracle Solaris.	Oracle VTS Software
Oracle Solaris Diagnostics	Use Oracle Solaris diagnostics to diagnose component problems and interpret the log files.	Core Dump File
Oracle Linux FMA	Oracle Linux Fault Management Architecture (FMA) software is an add-on service that receives data related to hardware errors detected by the host OS (CPU and memory) and automatically diagnoses the underlying problem.	Core Dump File