availmon(5)

NAME
     availmon - overview of system availability monitoring facilities

DESCRIPTION
     The availability monitor (availmon) is a set of programs that are
     integrated with SGI Embedded Support Partner (a.k.a ESP; see esp(5) for
     more details) to collectively monitor and report the availability of a
     system and the diagnosis of system crashes.  For unexpected reboots,
     availmon identifies the cause of the reboot by gathering information from
     diagnostic programs such as icrash(1M), which includes results from the
     FRU analyzer when available, and syslog (see syslog(3C)), and system
     configuration information from configmon(1M), versions(1M), hinv(1M) and
     gfxinfo(1G).

     Availmon can send availability and diagnostic information to various
     locations, depending on configuration; it can provide local system
     availability statistics and reboot history reporting.

     All availmon capabilities are configurable from SGI ESP User Interface.
     Availmon, by default will not automatically send availmon reports on
     reboot.  In all cases, the Automatic e-mail distribution flag must be
     enabled for availmon to send reports.

     Availmon reporting centers around events.  Any system reboot is an
     availmon event, whether a controlled shutdown or an "unscheduled" reboot,
     such as a power interruption or a "crash".  An event record contains the
     time at which the system was previously booted, which starts the event
     period, the time the event occurred, which ends the period of "uptime",
     the reason for the event, and the time that the system was rebooted.  If
     the system stopped as a result of a hang, the exact instant at which it
     stopped is not easily known; this time is obtained from SGI ESP Event
     Monitor (see eventmond(1M) for more details) if Start Uptime Daemon flag
     is configured.

     Events are grouped as either "Service Action" events, or "Unscheduled"
     events.  Service Action events are controlled shutdowns, initiated by
     operators through shutdown(1M), halt(1M) and init(1M)).  For such
     controlled shutdowns, a (configurable) prompt is given to identify the
     reason for the shutdown.  Unscheduled events include system panics, and
     system interrupts (power failures, power cycles, system resets etc.).
     Panics are identified as either due to hardware or due to software or due
     to unknown reasons.  This distinction is based strictly on results of the
     FRU analyzer, if present.

     Availmon generates three types of reports: availability, diagnosis and
     pager.  Availability reports consist of the system serial number, full
     hostname/internet address, the previous system start time, the time of
     the event, the reason for the event (the event code), uptime, start time
     (following the reboot), and a summary of the reason for the event where
     relevant.
     Diagnosis reports include all data from an availability report, and
     additionally may contain the icrash analysis report, FRU analyzer result,
     important syslog messages, and system hardware/software configuration and
     version information.  Important syslog messages include error messages
     and all messages logged by sysctlrd and syslogd, since the last reboot.
     Duplicated messages are eliminated even if not consecutive; the first
     such message is retained with its time stamp, and the number of
     duplicated messages and the last time stamp are appended.  System
     software version information is limited to version output for the
     operating system and installed patches.

     Pager reports are intended for "chatty pagers", and include only the
     system hostname, a brief description of the reason for the event, and the
     summary, if present.

     Availability information for the local system is always permanently
     stored in SGI ESP database with the help of esplogger(1).  Files in
     /var/adm/avail are maintained by availmon and should not be deleted,
     modified, or moved.

CONFIGURATION
     Once availmon is installed, "registration" is required before availmon
     reports are automatically distributed, and if desired, other options may
     also be configured.  Registration of a system can normally be
     accomplished simply by enabling the flag Automatic e-mail distribution
     from SGI ESP User Interface (Setup->Availability Monitoring-
     >Configuration). The default distribution of email reports is to send a
     diagnosis report to availmon@csd.sgi.com, which enters the report into
     the SGI Availmon Database.

     There are several other configuration options that can prove useful.  One
     is to configure sending availmon reports from one or more systems to a
     standard system administrator email alias.  This provides real-time
     notification of system activity.  Another similar option is to configure
     availmon pager reports for real-time notification to "chatty" pagers.
     Or, availmon diagnostic reports may be sent to a local support office, or
     to a system administrator for detailed evaluation.

     Availmon can also generate periodic status reports that indicate that a
     system is still running and "registered" to send email reports.  This is
     controlled by the Number of days between status updates configuration
     value, which defaults to 60 days.  Such reports are sent by the
     eventmond, so they are sent only if the Start Uptime Daemon configuration
     flag is Yes.

     Even where sending of availmon reports is not enabled, local system
     availability data is always maintained, and System Information-
     >Availability option can be choosen from SGI ESP User Interface to
     produce statistical or event detail reports for the local system.

REPORT VIEWING
     The System Information->Availability option of User Interface reviews
     saved availability report information and provides statistical and event
     history reports.  By default, it processes the availability data on the
     local system.  It can also process aggregate site data; that is, an
     accumulation of availmon data from different systems.  Please refer to
     SGI ESP User Guide on how to setup your system to collect availability
     data from different systems.

FILES
     /var/adm/avail/.save/lasttick
          uptime in seconds since Jan 1, 1970 (written by eventmond)
     /var/adm/crash/*
          location temporary availmon files:  availreport.*, diagreport.*,
          pagerreport.*,
     /etc/init.d/availmon
          init script that logs start/stop and initiates notification

SEE ALSO
     esplogger(1), Mail(1), amparse(1M), amreceive(1M), amsyslog(1M),
     amtime1970(1M), configmon(1M), eventmond(1M), halt(1M), hinv(1M),
     icrash(1M), init(1M), shutdown(1M), versions(1M), syslogd(1M),
     syslog(3C), esp(5).

REFERENCES
     SGI Embedded Support Partner User Guide.