JPH07121392A - Automatic fault information sampling system for restarting computer system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To easily sample hardware fault information at the time of computer system stop so as to facilitate the maintenance/operation of a computer system as a result. CONSTITUTION:When system stop is generated at a computer system 1, an information sampling system start processing part 6 starts the computer system 1 with system configuration 10 dedicated to fault information sampling. Afterwards, a regular system start processing part 8 starts again the computer system 1 with on-line system configuration 11 after a fault information sample processing part 7 sample processing part 7 samples the information of a LAN controller 2. This operation is automatically performed.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a failure information collecting method when a system is restarted in an unmanned system such as a distributed computer system, and automatically collects failure information when a computer system stops due to an abnormality. Therefore, the present invention relates to a method for automatically collecting failure information when a computer system is restarted, for the purpose of reducing the down time of the computer system and minimizing the damage.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In an unmanned computer system such as a distributed computer system, when an abnormality occurs in the system and the system is stopped, the contents of the main memory are automatically collected and the IPL is performed again to restart the system. It is raising. As a system start-up method for automatically performing this re-IPL, a "computer system restart-up method" described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-137023 is conventionally used.
There is.

[0003]

In the above prior art, when the computer system stops due to a failure and automatically re-IPLs, only the contents of the main memory are automatically provided in the magnetic disk device for collecting failure information. Since it is collected in the file, there is a problem that it may not be sufficient as information for investigating and analyzing the cause of the computer system outage. In other words, if the cause of stopping the computer system is a peripheral device such as a magnetic disk device or hardware such as a communication control device, self-diagnosis result information if the device is a magnetic disk device, or control of that device if it is a communication control device. There was a problem that hardware-specific failure information such as memory contents was not collected, time was required for cause investigation and analysis, and countermeasures were delayed.

This is because the function of collecting fault information such as main memory when the system is stopped is executed under the OS (Operating System) when the system is stopped and the system is stopped. Since it is dangerous to do so, it is realized by a stand-alone type that is independent of the OS, but the process of collecting fault information of hardware such as peripheral devices is complicated, and it is difficult to realize by the stand-alone type. It is due to that.

An object of the present invention is to collect not only the contents of the main memory but also the failure information of the peripheral device or the like that caused the failure when the computer system stops due to a failure and is automatically re-IPLed. The purpose is to speed up and facilitate the cause investigation and analysis of the system stop. Another object is to make it possible to easily collect fault information of peripheral devices and the like.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, in addition to a system configuration for performing the original operation such as online in one computer system, dedicated to collecting fault information for collecting fault information The system configuration was set up.
Unlike the system that performs the original operation, the system configuration for collecting failure information saves the state at the time of failure without using peripheral devices.

Further, re-IP after the system is stopped due to a failure
In L, the system for booting fault information is started up, and the fault information collecting process is executed with this configuration.

Further, after collecting the fault information, the original system configuration is selected and the system is automatically restarted.

Further, when the system is stopped, the peripheral device causing the stop is detected and passed to the fault information collecting process.

[0010]

In the computer system, a failure information collection dedicated system for collecting failure information, an information collection system start-up process that automatically starts up this failure information collection dedicated system when the system is stopped, The primary system startup processing that automatically starts up the system that operates Further, there is provided failure cause detection processing for detecting hardware such as peripheral devices that have caused the system stop and contacting the failure information collection dedicated system.
When the system is stopped, the information on the main memory is output to the dump file, and the failure cause detection process detects the hardware causing the failure and saves it as identification information. After that, the information collection system startup processing starts up the failure information collection dedicated system and starts a job for information collection. The information collecting job collects the minimum necessary information about the hardware according to the hardware identification information that is the cause of the system stop and saved by the failure cause detecting process. After the information collection is completed, the main system startup processing automatically starts the system that performs the original operation.

As described above, when the system is stopped, the information necessary for the cause investigation and the analysis can be automatically collected, and the operation at the time of the system failure becomes easy. Further, by collecting the failure information under the OS, the failure information collecting function can be easily realized.

[0012]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the basic configuration of a computer system for implementing the present invention. In FIG. 1, a computer system 1 includes a LAN (local area network) control device 2 used for online processing and the like.
And CCP (communication control device) 3. Further, for implementing the present invention, the main memory collection processing unit 4, the failure cause detection processing unit 5, the information collection system startup processing unit 6, the failure information collection processing unit 7, the main system startup processing unit 8, and the failure hardware. A wear identification information file 9, a failure information collection dedicated system configuration 10, and an online system configuration 11 are provided. In the faulty hardware identification information file 9, information for identifying the hardware that has caused the computer system to stop is recorded.

In the computer system 1 of FIG. 1, L
An example of restarting the online processing after the system is stopped due to the failure of the AN control device 2 and necessary information is collected will be described with reference to the processing flow of FIG.

In FIG. 2, the IPL for online initiation
In (step 20), the computer system 1 is started up by the online system configuration 11 and is online (step 21). At this time, if the system stop 22 occurs due to a failure of the LAN control device 2, the main memory collection processing section 4 collects information in the main memory (step 23), and then the failure cause detection processing section 5 causes the cause of the error to occur. It is detected that the hardware is the LAN control device 2, and this is recorded in the faulty hardware identification information file 9 (step 24). The faulty hardware identification information file 9 is in the 30 state. After that, the information collection system start-up processing unit 6 re-IPLs.
Is started (step 25), and the computer system 1
Is IPLed with the fault information collection dedicated system configuration 10 (step 26). Next, the failure information collection processing unit 7 refers to the failure hardware identification information file 9 and selects the hardware for which the failure information should be collected (step 27).
The failure information of the AN control device 2 is collected (step 2
8). Next, the primary system start-up processing unit 6 starts re-IPL (step 29), and the computer system 1 is IPLed again with the online system configuration 11 (step 2).
0), the online operation state is set (step 21). As described above, when the system is stopped, not only the main memory but also information about hardware such as peripheral devices can be automatically collected, and then online can be automatically started.

Further, in the above embodiment, if the cause of the system stop is unrelated to the hardware, the online system is directly started without starting the failure information collection dedicated system, and the online stop time can be shortened. .

[0017]

According to the present invention, by automatically switching the configuration of the computer system, the failure information of the hardware such as the peripheral device which can be collected only under the normal OS is automatically displayed even when the computer system is stopped due to an abnormality. Since it is possible to collect the information, it becomes easy to investigate and analyze the cause of the computer system stoppage, and as a result, the maintenance and operation of the computer system become easier.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a basic configuration of a computer system that implements an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an example of processing according to an embodiment of the present invention, in a case where the system is stopped due to a hardware failure while the on-Iran system is operating, necessary hardware information is collected and the online system is operated again. The flowchart which shows.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Computer system, 2 ... LAN (Local Area Network) control device, 3 ... CCP (communication control device), 4 ... Main memory collection processing unit, 5 ... Failure cause detection processing unit, 6 ... Information collection system startup processing unit , 7 ... Failure information collection processing section, 8 ... Primary system startup processing section, 9 ... Failure hardware identification information file, 10 ... Failure information collection dedicated system configuration, 11 ... Online system configuration.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. When an abnormality occurs in a computer system that is operating and the computer system is stopped, IPL is automatically re-started to restart the computer system. When restarting the computer system, it causes a stop. A means for detecting a part (central processing unit or a peripheral device such as a disk or a communication control device) and a dedicated information collecting system for automatically collecting failure information of only the part causing the stop are provided. A method for automatically collecting fault information when restarting a computer system, which is characterized in that