IBM SY44-5902-05 manual Product Activity Log location, Paging environment

vWork with service action log

The SAL is a utility that scans the PAL and displays entries that require service representative action. It pulls out the relevant information from those entries and formats it to the display to show service information, such as failing resource names, field replaceable unit (FRU) part numbers, and FRU locations. If FRU part numbers and locations cannot be determined, the SAL display shows symbolic FRU names, which then correspond to problem analysis procedures for the service representative. The SAL runs before the operating system is up.

A shadow log is maintained by LIC on the load source disk. The 128 K-byte shadow log contains a duplicate of the most recent or latest Product Activity Log entries that occurred before IPL began and those entries that were logged since the beginning of IPL. The Product Activity Log option uses the shadow log when the system is operating in limited paging environment.

If Product Activity Log initialization is not complete, only the shadow log is accessible to this option. Also, the Product Activity Log menu offers only a few specific Product Activity Log options. The Main menu informs the user that log initialization has not completed, that all Product Activity Log entries are not accessible, and to IPL the operating system to complete initialization. If initialization completes after the Product Activity Log option has been selected, the option must be selected again to make all Product Activity Log options available for use and to generate reports that show all the log entries.

Product Activity Log location

The Product Activity Log is maintained by the Licensed Internal Code EREP component. The log files can be stored on any disk unit, so the system must IPL past storage management recovery to view the data.

Recovering from Product Activity Log errors while in DST

DST uses the LIC code; however, there is limited operating system support in the DST. Because there is limited operating system support, there is limited Product Activity Log entry handling support. Most Product Activity Log entries in DST are catastrophic to the function running, however, DST should continue to function. LIC log entries are created only if the system is in the full paging environment. In the limited paging environment, you are limited to messages sent to the display or the SRC on the control panel. If a Product Activity Log entry occurs while dumping information to removable media, go to “Work with removable media lifetime statistics” on page 104.

Paging environment

The product activity log is maintained by the system Licensed Internal Code. The storage management recovery step of the IPL process must be complete to allow you to view all the data in the log. If the error log initialization (ELI) IPL step is not complete, only the shadow log is accessible. The Product Activity Log display under the shadow log contains a subset of the options that are allowed when the operating system is available. A message on the Product Activity Log display informs the user that the error log is not initialized and that all log records are not accessible. The log files can be stored on any disk unit.

Chapter 3. Product Activity Log 101