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VXPAL (1M)

Maintenance Commands

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
OPTIONS
FILES
DIAGNOSTICS
EXAMPLES
SEE ALSO
COPYRIGHTS

NAME

vxpal - runs or issues commands to Veritas Provider Access Layer (VxPAL) agents.

SYNOPSIS

vxpal -h

vxpal -v

vxpal -a agent_name [ [-f] [ -c control_cmd [-u user@domain_name.domain_type] [-p password] -l host [ -d agent_domain -e port ] [-s service_name ] ] ]

DESCRIPTION

vxpal runs or issues commands to Veritas Provider Access Layer (VxPAL) agents. An agent is uniquely identified on the host by its name and is bound to a specific port on that host. Configuration information for the agent is present in /etc/vx/isis/Registry. An agent can participate in a secured domain by joining the domain using the veaconfig command. Agents can participate in more than one domain.

You might need to shut down agents on a local host using vxpalctrl.

See vxpalctrl(1m)

OPTIONS

-h, --help

Provides usage information for vxpal.

-v, --version

Prints the vxpal version number to the console.

-a, --agent agent_name

Specifies the VxPAL agent that you want to perform an action on. If no command is specified then the default command to start the agent is executed. agent_name can be one of the following: StorageAgent, StorageManager, DBEDAgent, actionagent, gridcentral, gridnode, VAILAgent, and so on. For the latest list of VxPAL agents, see the Veritas Storage Foundation Manager Release Notes.

-f, --foreground

Runs the specified agent in foreground mode. Process will not fork and will not be a daemon. Foreground mode is when parent process is suspended (shell in this case) and the child process (pal) will run.

-c, --control-command control_cmd

Runs the control command on the specified agent

stop Terminates the agent cleanly.

kill Terminates the agent abnormally (exit 0).

status Queries the state of the agent.

looksalive Queries the agent object in the Domain Controller bus and answers looksalive if the state of the agent is marked as up.

isalive Queries the agent object in the Domain Controller bus and answers isalive if the state of the agent is marked as up. (isAlive is a more thorough query than looksAlive.)

settracelevel= trace_level Specifies the logging level for the agent.

1, 2, 3, or 4---informational messages

5---warning messages

6---error messages

trace_level enables logging of messages that are equal to or higher than the value level. For example, if trace_level is set to 2, vxpal logs all messages that are at level 2 or higher.

-u, --user-id user@domain.domainType

The user ID. -u is optional, provided vxpal can access csf_resolv.conf. See the section called FILES. It is recommended that you include this option within csf_resolv.conf file on the managed host, so that you do not need to specify it within the vxpal command. Any values specified from the vxpal command override values in csf_resolv.conf. user is a valid account for the agent. domain is a valid authentication domain for the agent. domainType is the type of authentication domain for the agent, and can be the following: vx, nisplus, nis, nt, and unixpwd.

-p, --password user_passwd

Password for the specified account. -p is optional, provided vxpal can access csf_resolv.conf. See the section called FILES. It is recommended that you include this option within csf_resolv.conf file on the managed host, so that you do not need to specify it within the vxpal command. Any values specified from the vxpal command override values in csf_resolv.conf.

-l, --host agent_hostname

Short host name, IP address, or the fully-qualified host name for the agent. -l is optional, provided vxpal can access csf_resolv.conf. See the section called FILES. It is recommended that you include this option within csf_resolv.conf file on the managed host, so that you do not need to specify it within the vxpal command. Any values specified from the vxpal command override values in csf_resolv.conf. -d, --domain domain_name Short name, IP address, or the fully-qualified host name for the Domain Controller host.

-e, --port port

Port through which to connect through on agent host. If not specified, defaults to 1556---the port number for VxPBX.

-s, --service service_name

Name of the service (provider) on the specified agent.

FILES

The configuration information for the agent is present in /etc/vx/isis/Registry file. Entries for the agent in this file are mandatory. The registry can also be used to configure the location for the log files created for the agent.

veaconfig commands can be used to configure the agent.

csf_resolv.conf can be used to specify the security defaults for an agent to avoid having to specify authentication credentials when running commands on remote hosts. The presence of this file is optional and the location of the file can be specified through the environment variable CSF_DOMAIN_RESOLVE_CONF.

The default location is /etc/default/csf_resolv.conf (Solaris).

Agent log files are located using the values defined in the agents section (TRACEFILE key) of the Domain Controller registry. By default, agent log files are located in: /var/vx/isis/vxisis33_agentname.log

By default, the StorageManager agent log resides in: /var/vx/isis/StorageManager/StorageManager_vxisis.log

DIAGNOSTICS

vxpal may output messages similar to the following:

The input agent is not installed and configured on the machine. The registry entries for the agent are missing.

See veaconfig for agent configuration:

Agent agentname is not installed.
   vxpal -a unknownAgent

This message may be issued on stderr if there is a previously running instance of the specified agent. This can be verified using the ps command. If no other instance is running, remove lock file belonging to the specified agent. /var/vx/isis/agent_name. Lock and restart the agent:

Another instance of Agent <agentname> seems to be running.

This message is issued when a command is specified for run on an agent but insufficient information is provided. Every command requires that the agent be specified by the agent name in conjunction with the agents hostname and port or the agents hostname and domain name:

ERROR:Missing domain information for this agent

This message is issued when a command is specified for run on an agent but the domain information provided is not valid. The domain does not exist or cannot be contacted. Check to see that the status of the server on the Domain Controller. If up, confirm that the agent is participating in the domain:

ERROR: Domain invalid or cannot be contacted.

EXAMPLES

This section provides usage examples for vxpal.

EXAMPLE 1:

The following command checks the status of the gridnode agent:

vxpal -a gridnode -c status

EXAMPLE 2:

The following command sets the error logging level for actionagent to messages that are level 5 (warning) or higher:

vxpal -a actionagent -c settracelevel=5

EXAMPLE 3:

The following command checks to see if the gridcentral agent is running:

vxpal -a gridcentral -c isalive -s gridcentral

EXAMPLE 4:

The following command checks the status of the gridnode agent on the remote host, my_remote_host:

vxpal -a gridnode -c status -l my_remote_host.example.com -s gridnode

EXAMPLE 5:

The following command checks the status of the gridnode agent on the remote host, my_remote_host, using a user ID other than the one declared in csf_resolv.conf. In this situation, vxpal will prompt for a password for the user ID. The Authentication Broker host in this example is my_ab_host:

vxpal -a gridnode -c status -u
root@my_ab_host.example.com.unixpwd -l
my_remote_host.example.com -s gridnode

EXAMPLE 6:

The following command stops the actionagent agent on the remote host, my_remote_host:

vxpal -a actionagent -c stop -l
my_remote_host.example.com -s actionagent

VXPAL (1M)

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