Viewing Events with the Event Log

What is the Event Log?

The Event Log is a detailed record of events that occur on the Storage Subsystem. You can use the Event Log as a supplementary diagnostic tool to Recovery Guru for tracing Storage Subsystem events. However, always refer to Recovery Guru first when recovering from Storage Subsystem component failures.

Examples of events logged to the Event Log include:

The Event Log is stored in reserved areas on the disks in the Storage Subsystem.

The storage management software provides a way to view and sort the data in the Event Log, refresh the display to retrieve any new events, display detailed information about a selected event, and save selected Event Log data to a file.

The Event Log contains two levels of events: Critical and Informational. Critical events are sent to any Network Management Station (through SNMP traps) or e-mail recipient you configured with the Edit >> Alert option in the Enterprise Management Window. For more information about SNMP notification, see the online help for the Enterprise Management Window.

How to View the Event Log

To view the Event Log from the Subsystem Management Window, do one of the following:

Result: The Event Log window is displayed.

About the Event Log Window

Event Log Window Views

There are two possible event views in the window:

Summary View - Displays an event summary in a table form. See Viewing and Interpreting Event Summary Data, below.

Detail View - Displays details about a selected event. See Viewing and Interpreting Event Details, below.

When the View Details checkbox is selected, the window divides into the two views. To resize the panes, select the splitter bar between the two views and move it up or down.


How to Display Events

Note: When you open the Event Log Window, the default number of events displayed is 200.

1

Specify the number of events to retrieve in the Display most recent events spinner box.

The numbers increment by 25, or you can type in the number you want.

2

Select Update to retrieve new events from the Storage Subsystem for display.

The Update button:

  • Refreshes the window to display the most recent events
  • Retrieves a new number of events if the Display most recent events box is changed.
  • Resorts the data back to the original order (by sequence number).

Viewing and Interpreting Event Summary Data

There are four columns in the Event Summary table:

Column

Description

Date/Time

The date and time stamp of the error, according to the controller clock.

Note: The Event Log initially sorts events based on sequence number (shown in the event details). Normally, this will correspond to the date/time. However, the two controller clocks in the Storage Subsystem could be unsynchronized. In this case, some perceived inconsistencies could be displayed in the Event Log relative to events and the date/time shown. Use the Storage Subsystem >> Set Controller Clocks option to synchronize Storage Subsystem controller clocks with the clock on your management station.

Priority

There are two priority values:

  • Critical - There is a problem with the Storage Subsystem. However, immediate action by the user may prevent losing access to data. Critical events are used for SNMP trap notifications. All critical events are automatically sent to any Network Management Station (through SNMP traps) or e-mail recipient you configured with the Edit >> Alert option in the Enterprise Management Window.

  • Information - Non-critical information related to the Storage Subsystem.

Category

Category

Description

Failure

Some component on the Storage Subsystem has failed.
Examples: Drive failure, battery failure.

State Change

An element of the Storage Subsystem has changed state.
Examples: A logical drive transitioned to optimal; a controller transitioned to offline.

Internal

Internal controller operations that do not require user action.
Example: The controller has completed start-of-day.

Command

A command has been issued to the Storage Subsystem.
Example: A hot spare has been assigned.

Host entry

Host software has posted the entry into the Event Log.

Error

An error condition has been detected on the Storage Subsystem.
Examples: A controller is unable to sync and purge cache; a redundancy error is detected on the Storage Subsystem.

General

Any events that do not fit well into any other category.

Description

A description of the event.

Example: Drive write failure - retries exhausted

Viewing and Interpreting Event Details

Use the View Details checkbox to show event details of a single selected Summary event. When you have enabled the View Details checkbox, click on a single event in the Summary View to show the details about that event in the Event Details View.

Note: Because some of the fields in the Event Details View require no explanation, this table only focuses on those fields which require additional detail.

Selected Field

Description

Sequence Number

A 64-bit number that uniquely identifies a specific log entry for a given Storage Subsystem. This number increments with every new entry into the Event Log.

Example: 2402

Event type

A 4-digit number that uniquely corresponds to a particular event priority, category and description.

Example: 1006

For more information, see Critical Event Descriptions.

Event specific codes

Information from the controller that provides additional information about the event.

Example: 6/3F/80

Raw data

Hex dump of the raw data contained in the entire Event Log entry.

Example: 0x01 00 30 00 04 ff 00 35....

How to Save Selected Events to a File

To save selected events from the Summary area to a file, perform the following steps:

1

Select the events you want to save to a file in the Summary View.

  • Press CTL + click to save multiple events that are not next to each other in the display
  • Press SHIFT + click to save a range of events, clicking on the first and the last event you wish to save
  • Select Select All to save every displayed event

2

Select Save As.

Result: The Save Events dialog is displayed.

3

Save the selected events by choosing an appropriate directory and filename.

The Save dialog can filter on files with a .log extension. Therefore, you may want to save the file with a .log extension using the filename conventions you used for any previous log files.

4

Type the file name of your choice in the File Name text box.

Example: Name the file january13.log.

5

Select Save.

Result: A file containing the selected events, with a .log extension, is saved to the directory.