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Using Dell PowerEdge Diagnostics

Dell™ PowerEdge™ Diagnostics Version 2.7 User's Guide

  The GUI

  The Command Line Interface


Dell™ PowerEdge™ Diagnostics can be accessed in two ways: from an integrated graphical user interface (GUI) and from a CLI through the operating system. This section describes both interfaces.


The GUI

When you launch PowerEdge Diagnostics in GUI mode, the Discovering Devices window indicates the progress of device-discovery, until enumeration is complete. Discovery or enumeration of the devices occurs only when the application is launched. If your system hardware has changed, restart the application to re-enumerate the devices on your system.

NOTE: Connecting or removing a USB or a CD/DVD device from a Red Hat® Enterprise Linux system or SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server while the enumeration is in progress may cause the system to hang.
NOTE: If the system fails to discover USB controllers, ensure that the USB Controllers are enabled in the BIOS and USB Controller support is set to "ON with BIOS support" in the BIOS Setup menu.

Menu Options

The File menu provides the following menu options:

To save the configuration details:

  1. Click File® Save Configuration or press <Ctrl><s>.

The Save Configuration HTML File to Archive dialog box is displayed.

  1. Choose the location where you want to save the config.zip file and click Save.

  2. A message box displays a message indicating success or failure to save the HTML file (config.html) to the archive file (config.zip). Click OK.

  3. Extract the contents of config.zip to a selected directory and then open config.html.

  1. Click File®Save Results. Alternatively, press <Ctrl><r>.

The Save Result HTML File to Archive dialog box is displayed.

  1. Choose the location where you want to save the archive file (results.zip), and click Save.

  2. A message box displays a message that indicates success or failure to save the HTML file (results.html) to the archive file (results.zip). Click OK.

  3. Extract the contents of results.zip to a selected directory and then open results.html.

The Help menu provides the following menu options:

Diagnostics Interface

The PowerEdge Diagnostics GUI is divided into two sections:

Diagnostic Selection

Use this section to select and organize how devices and tests are displayed.

Selection Options

Use this list box to organize how tests and detected devices are displayed. You can select any of the three options from this list box.

Group by connection

Use this option to organize the Select Test(s) to Run box display as a tree structure with the connection as the nodes and with the applicable devices and the tests listed under them.

Group by device

Use this option to organize the Select Test(s) to Run box display as a tree structure with the devices as the nodes and the tests applicable to each device listed under them. If the device is grayed out, it implies that there are no tests available for the device. However, you can still view the configuration details of the device.

Group by tests

Use this option to organize the Select Test(s) to Run box display as a tree structure with the tests as the nodes and the applicable devices listed under them.

The following table describes the icons in the Select Test(s) to Run window.

Indicates a device.

Indicates a device with a noncritical error or warning associated.

Indicates a test.

Indicates a test with a noncritical error or warning associated. A test warning message is displayed on mouseover.

Select All: Click this button to select all the devices and tests displayed in the Select Test(s) to Run box.

Remove All: Click this button to remove all the selected devices and tests in the Select Test(s) to Run box.

Select Test(s) to Run

Use this section to select the devices and tests to be executed. The section is organized according to the option you selected in the Selection Options list box.

If the display is grouped by devices, you can do one of the following:

If the display is grouped by tests, you can do one of the following:

NOTE: You can select a device in the Diagnostic Information section, and view its corresponding configuration details highlighted in the Configuration tab.

Diagnostic Information

Use this section to view the system configuration and operational status information. In addition, you can run selected tests and view the results of these tests.

Configuration

Use this tab to view the operational status of the detected devices and their configuration details. To view the configuration details for a device, select the device from the Select Test(s) to Run section. The configuration details of the selected device are highlighted in this page.

The configuration details of the devices are listed under the following headings.

Device Name: The name of the device.

Device Attribute: Lists the device attributes. The following are the device attributes.

Status

Specifies the operational status of the device.

Description

Specifies a brief description.

Class

Specifies the class to which the device belongs. For example, the device LPT1 belongs to the class Parallel Port.

Location

Specifies the location of the device in the system. For example, system board.

Additional Information

Specifies any additional information. For example, if the device is embedded on the system board, the value Embedded is displayed against this field.

Value: Specifies a value against each attribute of a device.

Additional Hardware Information: Provides additional hardware information of a device, if available, under the Configuration tab. When additional hardware is available, the information icon appears next to the device name in the Configuration tab. Double-click the row to view additional hardware information for the device. See "Appendix A" for more information.

Tests Selected

Use this tab to run the tests you selected in the Select Test(s) to Run section. This tab contains the following sections.

Diagnostic Tests Selected: This list box displays all the tests selected in the Select Test(s) to Run box.

Diagnostic Options: Use this section of the Tests Selected tab to run the selected tests. This section contains the following controls.

Run Tests

Starts the selected tests. You can run multiple tests at the same time.

Quick Test

Uses a faster algorithm to conduct a specific test if one is available. If no errors are reported after running in Quick Test mode and you still believe the tested hardware has problems, it is recommended that you clear (deselect) Quick Test mode and run the same test again.

Number of Passes

Specifies the number of iterations for the selected test. The minimum value is 1 and the maximum is 20.

NOTE: Double-click a test associated with a Noncritical icon to view the warning or informational message.

Status

Use this tab to view the status of the tests that are executing. Elapsed Time and Overall Progress appear as part of Status. Elapsed Time is shown in the format of hh:mm:ss and is the amount of time that elapsed, since the job group of tests started to run. Overall Progress is the cumulative progress of all the tests in the current job group.

The status of each test is displayed under the following column headings:

Completed

Specifies that the test has been completed.

Suspended

Specifies that the test has been suspended. You can only suspend a test manually. In addition, the application does not suspend a test on its own. You can suspend a test in the Executing state only if the test supports the Suspend feature. Not all diagnostic tests support the Suspend feature.

Aborted

Specifies that the test has been aborted. You can only abort a test manually. In addition, the application does not abort a test on its own. You can abort any test in the Ready state or you can abort a test in the Executing state only if the test supports the Abort feature. Not all diagnostic tests support the Abort feature.

Executing

Specifies that the test is running. You can suspend a test only when the test status is Executing. You can abort a test in the Executing state only if the test supports the Abort feature.

Ready

Specifies that the test has not started but has been queued up for execution. You can abort any test when it is in the Ready state.

Result: Specifies the result of a test in the form of symbols. For example, the Status column of a test might show as Completed, but the Result column specifies whether the test completed successfully or failed.

The following table describes the various symbols and the test result indicators they represent.

The test completed successfully.

The test is being executed.

The test was aborted.

Noncritical errors were encountered during the execution of the test.

The test failed.

The test has been suspended.

Result

Use this tab to view the results of the tests executed along with a brief description about the outcome of each test.

The Result column in this tab briefly describes the test outcome. In addition, you can double-click anywhere in the row to view the corresponding result message. For example, if a test failed, the Result column will display the problem encountered and any actions you must take.

Right-click to bring up the Delete/Delete All Completed menu. Select Delete to remove the test results of an individual test and Delete All Completed to remove all test results of all completed tests from the Status tab and the Results tab.


The Command Line Interface

To run the application in CLI mode, run pediags from <ExtractDir>/oldiags/bin, which should be the current working directory. In Windows operating systems you can also select Start®Programs®PowerEdge Diagnostics 2.7 ® PowerEdge Diagnostics CLI to run the application in CLI mode.

NOTE: Connecting or removing a USB or a CD/DVD device from a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server while the enumeration is in progress may cause the system to hang.

Primary CLI Commands

The following commands carry out the functions of PowerEdge Diagnostics:

This command displays short text help for CLI commands.

This command lists all device classes and tests available.

This command displays text help for the <DEVICECLASS> you specify. For example, if you type the following command, pediags modem --help, this command displays a short text help for the devices listed as modems and the different tests associated with modems. <DEVICECLASS> is the package name of the device, for example, CMOS, network, and cddvd.

This command displays the list of device classes, tests, or both device classes and tests. The default option is all that displays both device classes and tests. You can specify index options and choose the format in which you want the output to be displayed. The parameters should follow the particular order in which they are listed above, format options must always be the last parameter.

For example, the command, pediags pci --show test test-index=1,2,3 fmt=tbl, displays the tests whose index numbers are 1, 2, and 3 in a table format.

If you type the following command, pediags pci --show device device-index=1,2,3 fmt=tbl, this command displays the device classes whose index numbers are 1, 2, and 3 in a table format.

Use pediags <DEVICECLASS> --show device details=true to view additional device information, if available.

The details=true option works only with "--show device". For example, to see additional hardware information for the SCSI devices, enter pediags Scsidevdiag --show device details=true.

This command runs tests on the device class you select. You can specify index options, test settings, and choose the format in which you want the results to be displayed. The parameters should follow the particular order in which they are listed above, format options must always be the last parameter.

In the <Test Settings> parameter, you can specify quicktest as true or false and you can specify the number of iterations or passes for the selected test. Passes specifies the number of passes to execute.

For example, the command, pediags network --run test-index=1,2,3 quicktest=true passes=6 fmt=tbl, runs six iterations of the tests whose index numbers are 1, 2, and 3 on the network device class. The results are then displayed in a tabular format.

Runtime is limited to 3 days (72 hours). The minimum value is 1 and the maximum is 999.

NOTE: Running the pediags command on the device class from two different consoles simultaneously may display the message: System resources may have already been used by another diagnostics instance.

Aborting PowerEdge Diagnostics in CLI Mode Using <Ctrl><c>

Using <Ctrl><c> to abort with the --show command does not cause the action to abort. When running tests, you may use <Ctrl><c> at any point of time during the execution sequence to stop the test. No output may be available and the test may exit with a blank message. This may occur if the execution of the pediags command has been interrupted even before the diagnostic test has started. If you abort a test that has already started, the test may come out with a Test was aborted by the user result event if the Abort feature is supported by the particular test. For multiple passes, even if the test supports Abort, it is not guaranteed that the test will always come out with Test was aborted by the user result event. This might occur because the multiple pass test may have been aborted during the transition from one pass to another.

Tests that do not support the Abort feature will always run to completion. See Table 4-1 for a complete list of tests that support any or all of the Abort, Suspend, and Quick Test features.

Scripting With the CLI

The PowerEdge Diagnostics CLI allows administrators to write batch programs or scripts to be executed by the operating system. For an enterprise with many systems, an administrator could write a script that runs diagnostic tests on system components to determine their health.

In many cases, the CLI allows a user with a very well-defined task in mind to retrieve information about the system rapidly. You can redirect the diagnostic output to a file using the operating system's redirection feature.

You can also use the exit codes explained in the following table when writing scripts.

0

The test has a passed result.

1

The test has a warning result.

2

The test has a failed result.

3

The application failed because of dependency issues or runtime issues.

Exit codes 0, 1, and 2 are applicable for only test execution (irrespective of multiple or single pass). The exit code is the aggregate status of all the tests executed. For example, out of 20 tests, if there is one test result with a warning and another test with a failed result with all other tests being successful, the final exit code will be 2. The exit code for a failed result will take precedence over an exit code for a warning result.

Scheduling Diagnostics

Using your operating system's task-scheduling features, you can schedule PowerEdge Diagnostics to run diagnostic tests on your system.


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