Using prtdiag to troubleshoot system problems
The prtdiag command on Solaris systems is both a script and an executable. The script, /usr/sbin/prtdiag, does a little fact checking -- such as whether your "uname -i" command yields a proper response; it should be your platform designation (e.g., SUNW,Sun-Fire-V240) and then runs the "real" prtdiag from its /usr/platform location. On a Sun Fire V240, for example, that location should be /usr/platform/SUNW,Sun-Fire-V240/sbin/prtdiag. The /usr/platform/`uname -i`/sbin/prtdiag command should work on any system. The command at this location is the binary that collects the information that prtdiag displays.
Even without its verbose (-v) option, prtdiag provides a lot of information on your system's components, including a status indicators such as "okay" and "online" for various system components. The output shown below is a portion of the prtdiag output, showing the status of I/O devices. It took me a while to realize that "MB" represents the motherboard.
================================= IO Devices =================================
Bus Freq Slot + Name +
Type MHz Status Path Model
------ ---- ---------- ---------------------------- --------------------
pci 66 MB pci108e,1648 (network)
okay /pci@1f,700000/network@2
pci 66 MB pci108e,1648 (network)
okay /pci@1f,700000/network@2,1
pci 33 MB isa/su (serial)
okay /pci@1e,600000/isa@7/serial@0,3f8
pci 33 MB isa/su (serial)
okay /pci@1e,600000/isa@7/serial@0,2e8
pci 33 MB pci10b9,5229 (ide)
okay /pci@1e,600000/ide@d
pci 66 MB scsi-pci1000,21 (scsi-2)
okay /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2
...
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prtdiag limitation
Be careful if you use Avocent KVMs with USB keyboard dongles to manage your Sun machines. The prtdiag command tries to query the USB ports and gets an invalid response back when the Avocent dongle is connected. Needless to say, prtdiag dies when this happens and you get no information on your disk & power supply health. If you disconnect the Avocent dongle, prtdiag reports information correctly.