IBM LTO4 Tape Drive
 
IBM LTO3 Tape Drive
 
IBM LTO7 Tape Drive
 
Oracle Key Manager
 
IBM LTO1 Tape Drive
 
IBM LTO2 Tape Drive
 
Sun StorageTek Crypto Key Management System
 
IBM LTO5 Tape Drive
 
IBM LTO6 Tape Drive
 

PLA-Support>Sun Systems>Sun_Other>Sun Collections>SN-OTH: TAPE-CAP VCAP
 

Applies to:

Goal

How to acquire IBM LTO ITDT Tape Diagnostic Tool for Pulling Drive Dumps.

Where to acquire IBM LTO ITDT Tape Diagnostic Tool.

How to retrieve a drive dump from an IBM LTO drive with the IBM ITDT Tool.

Solution

DISPATCH INSTRUCTIONS
- WHAT SKILLS DOES THE FIELD ENGINEER/ADMINISTRATOR NEED:
Familiar with IBM LTO tape drives and ITDT tool.

- TIME ESTIMATE: 60 minutes

- TASK COMPLEXITY: 0

FIELD ENGINEER/ADMINISTRATOR INSTRUCTIONS:
- PROBLEM OVERVIEW:
IBM LTO Tape drive has undetermined errors.  Dump logs need to be pulled to understand the issue.

- WHAT STATE SHOULD THE SYSTEM BE IN TO BE READY TO PERFORM THE
RESOLUTION ACTIVITY?:
All work to the effected drive should be stopped.  Drive should be taken offline from the Operation System and Software Application.

- WHAT ACTION DOES THE FIELD ENGINEER/ADMINISTRATOR NEED TO TAKE:
Dumps should be collected as soon as possible when investigating a problem.
Dumps collect information from the drive for a certain time-frame.
All dumps should be accompanied by supporting information that describes the problem being looked at.

Refer to the attached document for specific information on retrieving a Drive Dump using IBM ITDT Tool.

Note: ITDT 7.0 is needed for IBM LTO6 Support.

Note: ITDT 9.0 is needed to support IBM LTO7 drives.

Steps to Follow

If the customer has an IBM LTO5 or higher drive they can retrieve the drive dumps from the service Ethernet.  Refer to the following Knowledge Document for further information:

IBM LTO - How to Take a IBM LTO Drive Dump From Ethernet, Without Using IBM Offline Tool ITDT for IBM LTO 5 and Above (Doc ID 1926018.1)

If the customer has the drive running on AIX, then AIX might have already retrieved a dump.  Refer to the following Knowledge Document for further information:

IBM LTO - How to Retrieve IBM LTO Drive Dumps from an IBM AIX Host (Doc ID 2004064.1)

To collect dumps from IBM LTO products the recommended tool is called ITDT.

Contact Oracle Tape Technical Support to acquire this tool.

Download the required tool version from the Tape Support website: IBM ITDT tools are listed under the "Reference" -> "Tape Product Tools" -> "OEM Drives" section on TapeSupport (https://tapesupport.us.oracle.com/Procedures/tools_main.php#OEM Drives).

Note: For the Windows versions of IBM ITDT tools, MOS won't allow you to post an ".exe" or ".msi" file so we had to add a ".txt" file extension to the end of them so please make sure the customer is aware that after they download the file from MOS they will have to take the ".txt" file extension off.

The tool provides options to collect dumps or download code to the drive. 
The program will produce 4 files.  The file name of the dumps will contain the drive serial number, a time and date stamp and if more than one dump has been taken for that drive, the dumps will start adding "001", "002" etc to the end of the files.

Drive dump function:
1.  When the dump function is executed on a drive, the tool will read the existing dump on the drive, force a dump, then read the forced dump.  This will create two dump files.
2.  The two dump files created by the dump function will be time stamped with year, month, day, and seconds and contain the drive serial number.  The first dump file read has an "A" suffix.  The second file produced has a "B" suffix.
3. The Tool will place the files that are created in the "LTO Dumps" or "output" folder in the directory with the tool.
4. Provide the ".a" and ".b"dump files from the above directory to support for analysis.

How to retrieve a drive dump from an IBM LTO drive with the IBM ITDT Tool:

This procedure was done with the 7.0.0 Build 61 version of the IBM ITDT tool on Windows 7.

To generate and retrieve a dump off of the IBM LTO tapes drives with the IBM ITDT tool please follow the following procedure:

1. Start the IBM ITDT tool and then click on the “Scan” button on the left hand side.

Note: Always run the IBM ITDT tool as Administrator

2. Once the scan is complete you will get the drive/drives listed in the Device box on the left hand side.

Note: Make sure the drive S/N for the drive that you want to generate and retrieve the drive dump from is the drive that is checked before you move on.

3. Click on the “Dump” button just above the devices to generate the dump on the drive.

4. Once the dump has been generated you will see that the tool will show if the dump retrieval passed or failed and what files were generated under the new tab that was added for that drive’s S/N.

Note: The IBM ITDT tool automatically saves the dump files into the “output” folder that is in the IBM ITDT install directory.

5. Take the “.a” and “.b”, dump files and attach them to the SR so that an Oracle support representative can analyze them.

Note: Please let Oracle support know if there was an error code flashing on the front of the drive. This will guide them to which of the 2 dump files they analyze for the failure. If the drive had an error code on the drive it means that a dump was already available on the drive and by running the dump command from the IBM ITDT tool you just simply retrieved the dump off of the drive. If there was no error code on the drive then by running the dump command from the IBM ITDT tool you actually forced a dump and then retrieved that forced dump off of the drive.

 

OBTAIN CUSTOMER ACCEPTANCE
- WHAT ACTION DOES THE FIELD ENGINEER/ADMINISTRATOR NEED TO TAKE TO RETURN THE SYSTEM TO AN OPERATIONAL STATE:
Once dump log has been acquired, bring drive back online to the Operating System and Software Application.

PARTS NOTE: na

REFERENCE INFORMATION:
IBM LTO Installation and User’s Guide
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7002972&aid=1

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