Installation guide

Most of the exerciser commands have an online help flag that displays a
description of how to use that exerciser. To access online help, use the −h
flag with a command. For example, to access help for the diskx exerciser,
use the following command:
# diskx −h
The exercisers can be run in the foreground or the background and can be
canceled at any time by pressing Ctrl/C in the foreground. You can run
more than one exerciser at the same time; keep in mind, however, that the
more processes you have running, the slower the system performs. Thus,
before exercising the system extensively, make sure that no other users are
on the system.
There are some restrictions when you run a system exerciser over an NFS
link or on a diskless system. For exercisers such as fsx that need to write
to a file system, the target file system must be writable by root. Also, the
directory from which an exerciser is executed must be writable by root
because temporary files are written to the directory.
These restrictions can be difficult to adhere to because NFS file systems are
often mounted in a way that prevents root from writing to them. Some of
the restrictions may be adhered to by copying the exerciser into another
directory and then executing it.
F.1.2 Using Exerciser Diagnostics
When an exerciser is halted (either by pressing Ctrl/C or by timing out),
diagnostics are displayed and are stored in the exerciser’s most recent log
file. The diagnostics inform you of the test results.
Each time an exerciser is invoked, a new log file is created in the
/usr/field directory. For example, when you execute the fsx command
for the first time, a log file named #LOG_FSX_01 is created. The log files
contain records of each exerciser’s results and consist of the starting and
stopping times, and error and statistical information. The starting and
stopping times are also logged into the default system error log file,
/var/adm/binary.errlog. This file also contains information on errors
reported by the device drivers or by the system.
The log files provide a record of the diagnostics. However, after reading a
log file, you should delete it because an exerciser can have only nine log
files. If you attempt to run an exerciser that has accumulated nine log files,
the exerciser tells you to remove some of the old log files so that it can
create a new one.
If an exerciser finds errors, you can determine which device or area of the
system has the difficulty by looking at the /var/adm/binary.errlog file,
F–2 Using the System Exercise Tools