This document discusses the most common reason for console errors in the system error report. This document applies to AIX Versions 4.x.
For more in-depth coverage of this subject, the following IBM documents are recommended:
The product documentation library is also available:
http://www.rs6000.ibm.com/resource/aix_resource/Pubs/index.html
This document explains the usual reason for an error log entry similar to the following:
ERROR LABEL: CONSOLE ERROR ID: 89B52AA5 Date/Time: Fri Aug 20 14:45:53 Sequence Number: 20660 Machine Id: 000044144100 Node Id: mst3000 Class: S Type: PERM Resource Name: console Error Description SOFTWARE PROGRAM ERROR Probable Causes SOFTWARE PROGRAM Failure Causes SOFTWARE PROGRAM Recommended Actions REVIEW DETAILED DATA Detail Data DETECTING MODULE conwrite FAILING MODULE UIO_WRITE RETURN CODE 538976309 8224 ERROR CODE 538976304 2105344
This error is typically caused by an application that is started automatically during a bootup in one of the /etc/rc* or /etc/inittab files. Many applications open the console device to report errors or status. When the application writes to the console after a bootup has completed, the write( ) call will return EIO due to POSIX Std 1003.1 section 6.4.2.4: "The implementation supports job control, the process is in a background process group and is attempting to write to its controlling terminal, TOSTOP is set, the process is neither ignoring nor blocking SIGTTOU signals, and the process group of the process is orphaned."
When the console device driver senses that the write( ) call has failed, it logs an error to indicate that some program has attempted to notify you and has failed. It is not important to understand the reason that you are getting this entry in the error log; instead, it is important to find exactly which program is causing this error. The best way to do this is to put the following line into your /etc/inittab file immediately after the line that begins with powerfail:
swcons:2:wait:/etc/swcons /tmp/cons.out > /dev/console 2>&1
Then, as root, enter the following command:
swcons /tmp/cons.out
Periodically check the file /tmp/cons.out for error messages that should be recognizable as coming from an application that is started during the bootup process. You may have to reboot your system to see these messages. Please be aware that messages that you used to see on your console (including bootup messages) will no longer appear there; they will now appear in /tmp/cons.out. You should monitor the size of this file, so that it does not fill the /tmp file system. To make the file empty, enter > /tmp/cons.out.
Once you have determined exactly which program is causing these errors, you can do one of the following:
[ Doc Ref: 90605199514598 Publish Date: Dec. 05, 2000 4FAX Ref: 1007 ]