15.1 Chapter Objectives

• Detect system problems before they affect users

• Explore HP s error-analysis tools

• Monitor disks for low space and device errors

• Receive automatic notification when queues are stopped or stalled

15.2 Introduction

Many problems that occur within a system are not preventable, for example, disks that run out of space, hardware failures, and stalled print queues. When any one of these events occurs, applications may become unstable or unavailable. Many of these problems do not just happen spontaneously; they develop over time. Through vigilant monitoring of system integrity, you can often detect a developing problem before it becomes critical. You should process problems proactively, not simply react to the symptoms.

This chapter discusses system events that are clues to pending problems. A number of DCL command procedures that provide automatic problem detection and reporting are included with this book.

15.3 Monitoring Hardware Errors

Whenever hardware errors occur, the OpenVMS error formatter (ERRFMT), a detached process, writes an error record to the system error log file. The location of the error log file, ERRLOG.SYS, is specified by the logical name SYS$ERRORLOG, which by default is defined as SYS$SPECIFIC:[ERRORLOG] .

The error log file contains a record of all system and device errors that occurred since the log file was created. Unfortunately, ERRFMT does not send a notification message when device errors occur. Therefore, you must monitor hardware errors using one or more of the following utilities.