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4-1-documentation/spear.doc
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SPEAR.DOC - - SPEAR V1(43) 06 Apr 83
COPYRIGHT (C) 1982 BY DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION, MAYNARD, MASS.
THIS SOFTWARE IS FURNISHED UNDER A LICENSE AND MAY BE USED AND COPIED
ONLY IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TERMS OF SUCH LICENSE AND WITH THE INCLUSION
OF THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICE. THIS SOFTWARE OR ANY OTHER COPIES
THEREOF MAY NOT BE PROVIDED OR OTHERWISE MADE AVAILABLE TO ANY OTHER
PERSON. NO TITLE TO AND OWNERSHIP OF THE SOFTWARE IS HEREBY
TRANSFERRED.
THE INFORMATION IN THIS SOFTWARE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE AND
SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED AS A COMMITMENT BY DIGITAL EQUIPMENT
CORPORATION.
DIGITAL ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE USE OR RELIABILITY OF ITS
SOFTWARE ON EQUIPMENT WHICH IS NOT SUPPLIED BY DIGITAL.
SPEAR.DOC - - SPEAR V1(43) 06 Apr 83 Page 2
1.0 SUMMARY
SPEAR is a package of programs which enable the field service and
operations staffs to quickly isolate and correct problem areas in the
system hardware or software. It is divided into two different packages,
basic and extended. The basic package is composed of the RETRIEVE,
SUMMARIZE, and KLSTAT features and is shipped with the monitor. The
extended package is distributed separately, depending on the site, and
includes the basic features plus the ANALYZE, COMPUTE, and INSTRUCT
functionality. INSTRUCT is a computer aided instruction (CAI) package
that, when used in conjunction with the SPEAR manual will allow anyone
interested in using the package to learn at his own pace, without
depending on anyone else.
SPEAR version 1(43) is written in BLISS and supports DECnet Phase III
under TOPS-10 v702, and TOPS-20 v5.1. SPEAR runs in native mode on both
systems.
2.0 EXTERNAL CHANGES
1. The only external changes in version 1(43) of SPEAR are the
support of the DECnet Phase III events.
2. There are no command interface changes.
3.0 KNOWN BUGS AND DEFICIENCIES
3.1 Bugs
1. In the SUMMARIZE outputs, the serial numbers for TU71 and TU72
tape drives are output in hex instead of in decimal. All other
SPEAR functions output them in decimal.
2. The MEAN RUN TIME in the COMPUT.RPT may be incorrect. This
will not affect the system availability figures.
3. COMPUT.RPT sometimes gives incorrect reload totals under the
monitor name headers.
4. The Front End CD20 reports contain incorrect values for the
four device registers. This causes the translation for the
CD11ST register to be incorrect. The CD20 configuration report
is also incorrect.
5. ANALYZE outputs the incorrect device names for magtape entries
created by the TOPS-20 RELEASE 5 monitor. It outputs names in
the form MTxzz instead of the form MTxyz.
SPEAR.DOC - - SPEAR V1(43) 06 Apr 83 Page 3
6. When looking at a SUMMARY report, all slave numbers of TMO2/3s
are reported as 0.
Under the headings of
TM02/TM03 Summary:
Hard Soft
and
TM02/TM03 Summary:
Error Register
the entries are sorted by serial number, so you may see a
number of drives with with the same slave number (ie MT500,
always ending in 0) with different serial numbers.
Under the heading
RH20 Breakdown (CONI)
which is sorted by logical name, all the errors for a
particular master will be reflected under a slave 0.
3.2 Restrictions
1. Some numeric values in various output reports are limited to a
specific field width. When this field width is exceeded (i.e.
the value is too large for the field), the field will be filled
with asterisks.
2. When the event file has too many entries, ANALYZE will give a
dynamic memory allocation error of the type:
? dynamic memory allocation error
- insufficient dynamic memory
One of the SUMMARIZE outputs is a table which enables the user
to see the number of entries broken down by major class and the
hour of the day. If ANALYZE runs out of dynamic memory, you
can use this summary output to adjust your analysis time frame
to a smaller window.
3. When two users are running SPEAR from the same directory, there
is a low probability of their temporary command files becoming
confused. This situation should be avoided.
4. The SPEAR package should not be put in a directory that begins
with a number, as the top level program will not be able to see
the lower level programs necessary for the running of SPEAR.
SPEAR.DOC - - SPEAR V1(43) 06 Apr 83 Page 4
4.0 ERROR FILE INFORMATION
1. When SPEAR outputs the following message:
%SPEAR Event file error detected in module RDFILE --
Routine GET__VALID_HEADER
- CHECK - Event file corruption detected - Attempting to RESYNC
it indicates that a portion of the event file being read is not
in the expected format (ie the data in the file has been
corrupted). In some cases, this may be caused by a lack of
disc space on PS:. Since the event file is written in a
special manner, it does not have all of the facilities of the
normal monitor file handler available. Although the file is
corrupted, both the file format and SPEAR have been designed to
recover from this problem and SPEAR will discard the bad block
and attempt to resynchronize itself in the next file block.
5.0 INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
5.1 Documentation Files For The Extended Package:
o SPEAR.DOC - SPEAR installation document.
o DEFINE.LIS - Event file documentation.
o ANSWER.TXT - Answer sheet for INSTRUCT questions.
o DAILY.CTL - Sample automatic daily batch control file.
o WEEKLY.CTL - Sample automatic weekly batch control file.
5.2 Files Needed To Run The Extended Package:
o INTRO.SPE - Intro file for INSTRUCT package.
o SPEAR.SPE - Help file used during user interface.
o SPEAR.EXE - User interface and main control routines.
o SPRMSG.SPE - Text file for overall summary in analysis.
o DSKMSG.SPE - Text file for disk analysis reports.
SPEAR.DOC - - SPEAR V1(43) 06 Apr 83 Page 5
o TPEMSG.SPE - Text file for tape analysis reports.
o KLMSG.SPE - Text file for KL CPU summary reports.
o NETMSG.SPE - Text file for NET/COMM summary reports.
o SPRANL.EXE - Error analysis package (ANALYZE).
o SPRRET.SPE - Text file for RETRIEVE package.
o SPRRET.EXE - Error file manipulation and translation package
(RETRIEVE).
o SPRSUM.SPE - Text file for SUMMARIZE package.
o SPRSUM.EXE - Device summarization package (SUMMARIZE).
o LOGGER.EXE - JOB0 program to create new statistics entries for
COMPUTE.
o SPRCOM.SPE - Text file for the COMPUTE package.
o SPRCOM.EXE - System availability reporting package (COMPUTE).
o SPRINS.EXE - Computer Aided Instruction package (INSTRUCT).
5.3 Documentation Files For Basic Package:
o SPEAR.DOC - SPEAR installation document.
o DEFINE.LIS - Event file documentation.
5.4 Files Needed To Run The Basic Package:
o SPEAR.SPE - Help file used during user interface.
o SPEAR.EXE - User interface and main control routines.
o SPRRET.SPE - Text file for RETRIEVE package.
o SPRRET.EXE - Error file manipulation and translation package
(RETRIEVE).
o SPRSUM.SPE - Text file for SUMMARIZE package.
SPEAR.DOC - - SPEAR V1(43) 06 Apr 83 Page 6
o SPRSUM.EXE - Device summarization package (SUMMARIZE).
5.5 Loading And Installing The Basic SPEAR Package
1. The Basic SPEAR executable package is found in the <SUBSYS>
area of the installation tape.
2. The documentation for Basic SPEAR is found in the documentation
saveset of the distribution tape.
5.6 Loading And Installing The Extended SPEAR Package
Mount the tape labeled Distribution Tape on MTAx: and type the
following commands:
DUMPER
TAPE MTAx:
SUPERCEDE ALWAYS
FILES
RESTORE <*>*.*.* (TO) <Doc-Area>*.*.*
RESTORE <*>*.*.* (TO) <Sys-Area>*.*.*
EXIT
Edit SYSJOB.RUN and SYSJOB.DEBUG to include the following:
RUN <Sys-Area>LOGGER
This will cause LOGGER to run under JOB 0 at the next reload. If you
want to start it imediately type the following commands.
ESPEAK
RUN <Sys-Area>LOGGER
Z
5.7 Basic Package Special Considerations
All the files listed in section 5.4 must exist in the same directory for
SPEAR to operate properly.
SPEAR.DOC - - SPEAR V1(43) 06 Apr 83 Page 7
5.8 Extended Package Special Considerations
All the files listed in section 5.2 with the exception of LOGGER.EXE,
must exist in the same directory for SPEAR to operate properly.
LOGGER.EXE must exist on the PS: structure.
6.0 INTERNAL CHANGES
1. The only internal changes in version 1(43) of SPEAR are the
support of the DECnet Phase III events.
2. There are no command interface changes.
7.0 SUGGESTIONS
The suggested method of using the extended package is to run the ANALYZE
function on a weekly basis against the error file of the previous week,
and supplement this report with daily runs for the last 24 hours. See
DAILY.CTL, and WEEKLY.CTL for examples of the control files to do the
daily and weekly runs automatically.
ANALYZE has to assume that the system has been maintained in a 'standard
fashion'. If you forgot to reformat disk packs after a realignment of
the drive, for example, you can expect ANALYZE to generate many
different "theories" on the read errors that will occur.
This release of SPEAR does not analyze above the "unit" level. You
might see ANALYZE indicting two or three units on one controller when,
in fact, the controller is at fault.
Since the ANALYZE function is new, SPEAR keeps pointers to each error
file entry used to produce a conclusive statement. These pointers are
kept in a "packet file" which is one of the outputs of ANALYZE. If you
don't believe that a conclusive statement is accurate or if you think
you have a better theory, you can specify this packet file as input to
RETRIEVE, and get the same detailed (or brief) entry report you got from
SYSERR.
[End of SPEAR.DOC]