Amber Lamps!

Amber lights actually, to be a bit more accurate.

We’ve got these two IBM p505 servers that actually work pretty well. They were purchased on some kind of clear out two-for-one deal that my predecessor jumped on and while I probably wouldn’t be the guy to buy these machines in the first place, I’ve come to strangely like them. These server run our DNS, DHCP and soon-to-be LDAP stuff. It’s all distributed, replicated and zone-transfered goodness.

However, as of this writing they are both sportin’ a solid amber light on the LightPath diagnostics and the procedure to clear the amber light is… well… rather unclear. I think it’s unclear because we don’t have an HMC (Hardware Management Console) so we don’t get a lot of the spiffy external management features that these systems offer. Add to the fact that we run Linux on these hosts as opposed to AIX, which apparently has OS-level tools for querying the event log and flipping the light switches. I can’t find anything equivalent on Linux for p-Series systems… yet.

Googling doesn’t offer much in the way of help for clearing amber lights without an HMC and neither does IBM’s website. Looks like I’ll have to reboot one of them and go into the management controller to see if there are any options in there.

Updates coming if I can find the dang off switch…

Update 2: Yay! I finally discovered the utility necessary to turn the amber lights on an off via software on a live Linux p5o5 system! It’s usysattn from the Powerpc-utils or “Linux on Power Service Tools” project. It seem backed by IBM in some way because they link to these tools quite heavily throughout their online documentation, but I haven’t investigated any further at this time.

Regardless, once you have the latest usysattn from Powerpc-utils installed just use this command to turn off the amber light:

# usysattn

To list all indicators (lights). Then once you have the “location code” of the light you want to turn off:

# usysattn -l [location_code] -s normal

The amber lamp is now off!

Update: I Found the option in the service processor configuration menus available over the serial port. Unfortunately this means I have to reboot my servers to clear the lights but I suppose if something caused the lights to go on in the first place, it’s probably worth checking it out and scheduling some downtime to resolve it.

For posterity, the sequence necessary to turn off the amber lights after logging into the service processor is:

System name: Server-9115-505-XXXXXX
Version: SF240_358
User: admin
Copyright ? 2002-2008 IBM Corporation. All rights reserved.
1. Power/Restart Control
2. System Service Aids
3. System Information
4. System Configuration
5. Network Services
6. Performance Setup
7. On Demand Utilities
8. Concurrent Maintenance
9. Login Profile
99. Log out

S1> 4

System Configuration
1. System Name
2. Processing Unit Identifier
3. Configure I/O Enclosures
4. Time Of Day
5. Firmware Update Policy
6. PCI Error Injection Policy
7. Interposer Plug Count
8. I/O Adapter Enlarged Capacity
9. Hardware Management Consoles
10. Virtual Ethernet Switches
11. Hardware Deconfiguration
12. Program Vital Product Data
13. Service Indicators
98. Return to previous menu
99. Log out

S1> 13

Service Indicators
1. System Attention Indicator
2. Enclosure Indicators
3. Indicators by Location code
4. Lamp Test
98. Return to previous menu
99. Log out

S1> 1

System Attention Indicator
Currently: On
Turn off the system attention indicator
Enter 1 to confirm or 2 to cancel:
The system attention indicator is turned off.
PRESS ENTER TO CONTINUE: