Monitoring the RKS Procedure

The rolling kernel switch (RKS) procedure can be monitored with various tools.

Context

Once the RKS procedure has been started, you should monitor its progress. Various tools are available to display the current status of the RKS procedure:
  • SAP MMC
  • System overview / transaction SM51
  • Overview of users / transaction SM04

Procedure

  • Monitoring the RKS procedure in SAP MMC: In SAP MMC from the menu option "System Update" underneath your system you can see the current status of all instances including the ASCS instance.
    • Scheduled: Instance is running with the old kernel still
    • Stopping: Instance is stopping
    • Started: Instance is running with the new kernel
    You can call up the same information with the following command:

    sapcontrol -nr <NR> -function GetSystemUpdateList

  • Monitoring the RKS procedure in the system overview / transaction SM51: Transaction SM51 provides additional information about the current RKS status. In transaction SM51 you can see the kernel update status of each application server instance and also information about the shutdown status.
    • Display Kernel Update Status Information:
      • Yellow status: Instance is running with the old kernel still
      • Red status: Instance is stopping
      • Green status: Instance is running with the new kernel
    • Monitor ASCS Status: Here you can see whether there is an open connection to the ASCS instance and the application server instances.

      Description of the RKS Procedure

  • Monitoring the RKS procedure in the user overview / transaction SM04: In transaction SM04 you can display user logons to an ABAP application server instance. There are various timeouts during soft shutdown of application server instances. If any users are logged on to an application server instance that is to be restarted, they are logged off from the system after a wait time specified in parameter rdisp/shutdown/gui_auto_logon. Users are notified with a system message that the application server instance is restarting and asked to log on to another instance. If users remain logged on to the instance that is due to restart, they are sent a second system message and then logged off.