[danoruk]

Hi,

I have a rather unique problem in that my company is a Windows shop but we have to have a couple of 510's for some bespoke applications to support - on a best endeavours basis.

The 510's are racked in the server room but the server room owners do not have access to the AIX prompt to perform a controlled shutdown in a the event one is necessary ....... I know, bizarre but that's the way it is I'm afraid!

Rather than simply holding in the power button to shutdown, is there a way to perform a clean shutdown using the pop out console thingy on the front of the server? I have tried searching the IBM support forums but the number of hits I get is huge and far too many to read!!

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Dan

[ross.mather]

The "pop out console". Do you mean an HMC?

If so you can shutdown LPARS and systems from there cleanly.

[thomasle]

Using the white button isn't the best way to shutdown the server. The pop-out display on the front of the system has a button (from what I recall) that's used to scroll thru menus on the LCD screen. Typically you would push & hold the white button until the LCD screen displays a countdown from 5 to 1. Release the button when it reaches zero and the server will start the shutdown process.

If you have an HMC, you can also shutdown the server from the HMC. If you have LPAR's configured, you should log into each LPAR from the HMC GUI and do a shutdown via AIX. As you know, the HMC doesn't have to be in the same room as the system.

If you don't have an HMC, you could use Putty to SSH to the server, login to AIX, and do a shutdown. Another way is to shutdown the server from the ASMI menu if you at least one of the HMC ports connected to your network. Link to ASMI information: IBM Systems Information Center

Long story short, there are a few ways to shutdown the server but it's best to shutdown the server thru AIX when possible.

[duke900ssd]

Short answer is no.

Without an HMC or an authorised AIX login then the white button is at least a little bit better then just turning off the power.

An HMC would be able to cleanly shutdown AIX without giving any access to the system, the shutdown partition option can actually sends a shutdown -F command to the AIX console without the HMC user loging in.

[pSerious]

Have you thought about how your going to power them back on again ? You would be simulating a power outage if you powered off using the white button, but not necessarily performing an automatic power up (unless configured to do so), so you could lose some services. Best advice is to find someone with access to the HMC or unix prompt.