Operating System Surveillance
Operating system surveillance provides the service processor with a means to detect hang conditions, as well as hardware or software failures, while the operating system is running. It also provides the operating system with a means to detect a service processor failure caused by the lack of a return heartbeat.
Operating system surveillance is not enabled by default, allowing you to run operating systems that do not support this service processor option.
You can also use service processor menus and AIX service aids to enable or disable operating system surveillance.
For operating system surveillance to work correctly, you must set these parameters:
vSurveillance enable/disable
vSurveillance interval
The maximum time the service processor should wait for a heartbeat from the operating system before timeout.
vSurveillance delay
The length of time to wait from the time the operating system is started to when the first heartbeat is expected.
Surveillance does not take effect until the next time the operating system is started after the parameters have been set.
If desired, you can initiate surveillance mode immediately from service aids. In addition to the three options above, a fourth option allows you to select immediate surveillance, and rebooting of the system is not necessarily required.
If operating system surveillance is enabled (and system firmware has passed control to the operating system), and the service processor does not detect any heartbeats from the operating system, the service processor assumes the system is hung and takes action according to the reboot/restart policy settings. See ªService Processor Reboot/Restart Recoveryº on page 59.
If surveillance is selected from the service processor menus which are only available at bootup, then surveillance is enabled by default as soon as the system boots. From service aids, the selection is optional.
