[Info-vax] TCPIP tying up system

[Ken Fairfield]

On Nov 30, 2:19 pm, John Wallace <johnwalla... at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> On Nov 29, 9:27 pm, Ken Fairfield <ken.fairfi... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Nov 29, 12:26 pm, John Wallace <johnwalla... at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > [...]
>
> > > And for those cases where terminals are unresponsive but console
> > > access is available?
>
> > > I can't remember if there's an official procedure, but getting to
> > > console mode (>>> on Alpha) and depositing rubbish (eg a 1) in the PC
> > > springs to mind. It worked on my PWS when I tried it not long ago, but
> > > that's not a very extensive sample. Also, different consoles have
> > > different syntax, iirc some have a "crash" command, etc.
>
> > Certainly on VAXes, you could Ctrl-P and do all sorts of
> > stuff.
>
> > Most "modern" Alphas don't respond to Ctrl-P.  :-(  They
> > have a "reset" button.  That gets you to the console, but
> > I don't seem to recall whether you can, at that point, get
> > a crash dump.  It probably depends upon the specific
> > Alpha and its firmware revision.
>
> > For those Alphas that have RMC in the console firmware,
> > I do believe you can get into RMC (<esc> <esc> RMC)
> > and type "crash", but one would want to, as you said,
> > plan ahead and make sure that command was available
> > and does what you want.
>
> > I've no experience with Itanium systems, so no comments...
>
> >    -Ken
>
> > > To fail to plan is to plan to fail, etc.
>
> > > regards
> > > john
>
> I just tried the little "reset" button again on my PWS and the little
> button is indeed a reset not a halt. I seem to have misremembered
> earlier (though I'm sure there are plenty of Alphas that do understand
> the difference between HALT and RESET).

Ah yes, same on my PWS.  And if you've got the
Auto_Action(?) set to "Boot", it can be hard to get
to the console (been there, had that problem :-( ).

> Fortunately on this PWS, Control-P does work, so long as console
> variable controlp is set to on (in advance, obviously - back to
> planning again).

I've never actually tried Ctrl-P on my PWS (and didn't
think to look for the variable).  In two previous lives,
we had AS4100's or ES40's.  Both of these have
Halt as well as Reset buttons.  ISTR that we
disabled Ctrl-P on AS4100 consoles.  On the ES40's,
we were running CA Console Manager and left
Ctrl-P enabled on the ES40's, but disabled it in CM.

> So the crash procedure for this box is, I think:
> press control-P, see ">>>", type "deposit pc 1" then "continue", get
> crash dump. Works for me. If I remember rightly :(

Time for a few dry runs to practice?  :-) :-)

   -Ken