White Papers

Diagnostics VRTX Chassis
Introduction
This white paper focusses on troubleshooting various chassis events by Diagnostic Console, LED
Pattern, Recover commands, Component troubleshooting such as PSU, PCIe Adapter, Storage
Controller, and Chassis Controller. This could be helpful for administrators to try few troubleshooting
techniques during critical events.
Terminology
RACADM: Administrator tool for configuring VRTX Chassis and servers
SEL: System event log a Logging standard from IPMI Specification
LCD: A liquid-crystal display is a flat panel display
NTP: Network Time Protocol
PSU: Power Supply Unit
LAN: Local Area Network
CMC: Chassis Management Controller
IPV6: Internet Protocol Version 6
Diagnostic Console
The VRTX Chassis troubleshooting can be done through the chassis Diagnostic commands. Issues
related to the chassis hardware can be diagnosed using the RACADM commands, if logged in as an
advanced user. To modify these settings, you must have the Debug Command Administrator
privilege. To access the Diagnostic Console using the CMC Web interface, do the following:
In the VRTX CMC Web interface, click Chassis Overview > Troubleshooting > Diagnostics. In the
Command text box, type a command and click Submit to obtain the response. The Diagnostic
commands explained here can be run on the console and the corresponding response can be obtained.
Traceroute
Traceroute is a Linux-standard command to trace the path of the packets, traverse time in the
network across Internet protocol. The following is the sample command and response:
$ traceroute 10.36.0.26
traceroute to 10.36.0.26 (10.36.0.26), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
10.36.0.26 (10.36.0.26) 0.221 ms 0.149 ms 0.25 ms
The mean time in each hop can be added to obtain the overall time it took to reach the host. If the
response comes with a “*” in any of the fields, then it implies that the data cannot be fetched and it
could be various reason such as lookup failure, any network packet loss, or unclear routing. If the
response has this type of situation on the response, then the DNS and routing on the network has to
be diagnosed.
This command can be used on the diagnostic console to detect any issues in the network path on the
VRTX Chassis. Any configurations made on the VRTX chassis for NTP servers, Remote syslog IPs, and
other remote management stations in the network can be diagnosed. Traceroute6 is the equivalent
command used on the IPV6 network.
For example:
traceroute6 <IP Address or Host name>