> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Christidis
> 
> [...] About a week ago, [...]
> We use BackPack/iX in our site and thus the first step was to 
> restore [...] the 'BackRest.pub.sys' program [...]
> I then proceed to run the 'BackRest' program, [...]
> AND.... nothing.  No activity what ever. [...]

> 2:00AM leaving  the system operational.  A few hours later [...] 
> I try to connect from home but cannot go beyond the password prompt.
[...]
> I drive to the site again.  The first line on the console was 
> my session 'log-off' from 2:00AM, followed by a job login around 3:00AM 
[...]  The last successful log-on occurred at
> 4:30AM, however, none of my earlier attempts from home were 
> logged.


> So.  Does any of this suggest to anyone of you where the 
> problem may be?

I've seen systems where the power supply went "bad" and activity would grind to a halt if/when it hit that drive.  This would include the "odd" case of being able to get a prompt to issue a hello command, and perhaps even enter passwords, but then "lock up" queued behind the unpowered drive.  (say for instance your logon command file/udc's were located on that drive)  Even stranger is the fact that users already logged in/at a prompt can press return and see "the system is up", but as soon as they do anything that references the drive, they're in the tar-pit as well...

If the supply is "on the verge of working/not-working", the reboot logic may cause the power supply to turn on long enough to boot & make a dump, but not necessarilly "run"  [in one case, the power supply remained on for about 8 seconds after pressing the switch, the shut off by itself]  The ultimate cause of the power supply failure: a coating of dust about 1/8" thick around the fan port.  [who says we don't need PM's anymore?]

> Is there any circuitry in the Jamaica enclosures that could 
> be causing this LDEV to 'drop out of sight' of the OS?

uhh, yeah -- the power supply :)

> Are we going to have to 'back step' from that LDEV and replace Jamaica box, cables, terminators, 
> controller, etc?

Here is/was the cool part: because the drive was an external enclosure, we were able to disconnect the SCSI cables, remove & replace the power supply, recable, and power on the drive --WITHOUT-- rebooting the system [mostly to see if it could be done]  After the drives diagnostics were through, the system slowly "un-hung" itself [so we could do a clean shutdown/reboot]  We were fortunate in this case that the drive(s) in the enclosure with the bad supply effectively locked "every" process, hence we were able to disconnect and reconnect the SCSI cables with no adverse effects [not something I would recommend every day, however...]

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