Enabling OpenBMC Debug

[Joseph Reynolds]

On 2/11/20 9:51 AM, Andrew Geissler wrote:
> I find myself running a lot of different commands to enable a variety of
> debug data on OpenBMC when debugging different issues (usually BIOS
> communication issues). I also end up giving these commands to a lot of people
> when recreating issues for me. Stuff like this:
>
> # enable debug logs in journal
> sed -i 's/info/debug/' /lib/systemd/journald.conf.d/journald-maxlevel-policy.conf
> systemctl restart systemd-journald.service
>
> # Enable BIOS communication service debug
> sed -i 's/mboxd/mboxd -vv/' /lib/systemd/system/mboxd.service
> sed -i 's/btbridged/btbridged --vv/' /lib/systemd/system/org.openbmc.HostIpmi.service
> sed -i 's/ipmid/ipmid -d 0xff/'  /lib/systemd/system/phosphor-ipmi-host.service
> sed -i 's/0/1/' /etc/default/pldmd
> systemctl daemon-reload
> systemctl restart mboxd.service
> systemctl restart org.openbmc.HostIpmi.service
> systemctl restart phosphor-ipmi-host.service
> systemctl restart pldmd.service
>
> I was contemplating wrapping the above stuff in a obmcutil command so instead
> of telling people to do all of the above (and dealing with situations when
> those commands change), I could say something like run "obmcutil debugon".
>
> Any thoughts out there? Would finer granularity of the debug be useful?
> Are there other forms of debug people would like enabled?

Thank you for the information.  I keep learning all the time.

These settings factor into service scenarios and also deployment 
readiness.  For example:
- I want to turn off debug.  For example, I want a debug-off command.
- I would want a way to validate (or at least show) these settings when 
testing firmware image release candidates.  For example, another 
obmcutil command "debug-show" which uses "grep -H" instead of "sed".
- I would want some documentation added the BMC administrator's guide to 
make them aware of OpenBMC debug support.  Draft: The obmcutil command 
can control debug settings for a variety of the components running on 
the BMC.  For more information, see 
https://github.com/openbmc/phosphor-state-manager/blob/master/obmcutil

The obmcutil tool is a shell script, so folks can take just the pieces 
they need.  That is, don't be more granular at this time.

In summary, it seems like a good idea.  It seems like we should ask our 
service architects to weight in.  I'll go ask mine....

- Joseph

>
> Andrew