Support Notes for SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 2 for HP Integrity Servers

Transcription

1 Support Notes for SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 2 for HP Integrity Servers HP Part Number: Edition: E0708

2 Copyright 2008 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Legal Notices Confidential computer software. Valid license from HP required for possession, use or copying. Consistent with FAR and , Commercial Computer Software, Computer Software Documentation, and Technical Data for Commercial Items are licensed to the U.S. Government under vendor's standard commercial license. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Acknowledgments Intel and Itanium logo are trademarks or registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. SUSE and SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server are registered trademarks of Novell.

3 Table of Contents Support Notes for SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 2 for HP Integrity Servers...5 Announcement...5 Support Note Contents...5 SLES 10 Service Pack 2 on Integrity Servers...5 Using the HP Smart Setup Application to Prepare for Operating System Installation...5 Documentation...5 Installing Your Operating System...5 Registering Software and Getting Updates from the SUSE LINUX Maintenance Web...6 Registering Software...6 Getting Updates from the SUSE LINUX Maintenance Web...6 Option 1 - Via the Web...6 Option 2 - Via the Network using YaST Online Update (YOU)...6 Known Issues...7 Table of Contents 3

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5 Support Notes for SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 2 for HP Integrity Servers Announcement This document provides instructions for initiating the SLES 10 Service Pack 2 installation using the HP Smart Setup application, explains how to get updates from SUSE LINUX Maintenance Web, and lists known problems with SLES 10 Service Pack 2 for the Intel Itanium Processor Family on HP Integrity Servers. Support Note Contents 1. SLES 10 Service Pack 2 on Integrity Servers 2. Installing Your Operating System (page 5) 3. Registering Software and Getting Updates from the SUSE LINUX Maintenance Web (page 6) 4. Known Issues (page 7) SLES 10 Service Pack 2 on Integrity Servers Hewlett-Packard has certified SLES 10 Service Pack 2 for the Itanium Processor Family (kernel version , glibc ) on Integrity servers. Using the HP Smart Setup Application to Prepare for Operating System Installation Use the HP Smart Setup application to prepare your system for installation of the Linux operating system. The HP Smart Setup application assists with tasks such as configuring storage adapters, upgrading firmware, preparing a system hardware inventory, and installing diagnostics tools. After operating system installation, you can use the HP Support Pack to install additional utilities and tools such as HP system management software. The HP Smart Setup application is part of the HP Integrity Essentials Foundation Pack for Linux,, which ships with your system hardware. It is also available for free download under the Linux link at the following website: Documentation Novell provides documentation for SLES 10 operating system installation with its installation media. Documentation for the HP Integrity Essentials Foundation Pack for Linux and the HP Smart Setup application come with your system. The HP Integrity Essentials Foundation Pack for Linux User's Guide ( describes how to use HP Smart Setup application to install SLES 10 Service Pack 2. Installing Your Operating System Before using the SLES 10 installation media, use the HP Smart Setup application and the Linux Installer media to load the operating system files on the server. After installation, set up the system and update it with the latest firmware, drivers, and patches. For details about installation procedures, see the HP Integrity Essentials Foundation Pack for Linux User's Guide ( Announcement 5

6 NOTE: HP recommends backing up all data and doing a cold install of SLES if upgrading from SLES8 or SLES9. Recovering your operating system: The HP Integrity Essentials Foundation Pack for Linux media and HP Smart Setup ship with your Integrity server. Contact your HP sales representative to obtain the foundation pack kit if it is not with your order. You can download the HP Integrity Essentials Foundation Pack for Linux and updates for free from the Linux link at: Registering Software and Getting Updates from the SUSE LINUX Maintenance Web Registering Software 1. From the following URL, (Novell Customer Center), log in under the Log In section if you already have a Novell user account. To create an account, click on the Create Account button: 2. After logging in to the Novell Customer Center, activate your product by clicking on the My Products > Activate Product link in the left-hand frame. Getting Updates from the SUSE LINUX Maintenance Web Option 1 - Via the Web 1. Go to the following URL: 2. Click on "Downloads" in the + Menu area at the top of the page. 3. Use the Search function in the Downloads home page to locate the products you want to update. 4. From the search results, click on the download button of the products to update. NOTE: Not all packages are available for every operating system version. Option 2 - Via the Network using YaST Online Update (YOU) 1. If running behind a firewall, you may need to modify your proxy settings. This can be done from YaST. 2. To access YOU: a. Type you and press Enter. b. On the Welcome to YaST Online screen, use the Tab key to highlight an option and press the space bar to select. When done making your selections, tab to Next at the bottom of the screen and press Enter. c. Select and install any desired updates. 6

7 NOTE: When presented with a list of packages to update, a plus (+) sign to the left of the package indicates select this package for update. Known Issues 1. HP recommends the use of HP provided drivers for use with HP-branded fibre channel cards. To obtain the driver: a. From the page at click on the "Support & Drivers" link. b. Click the radio button preceding "Download drivers and software" on the Software & Driver Downloads under the Step 1 section. c. Type the product name of the FibreChannel card in the text box under the Step 2 section, and press Enter. d. Click "SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 (Itanium)" under the Select operating system heading. e. Scroll down the download drivers and software page for your specified card, and click the download button for the required driver. 2. On the rx3600 or rx6600, kdump may fail if the kdump target storage is a SAS RAID device connected to a PCIe Smart Array card which is plugged into the either PCIe slot 3 or PCIe slot 4. This problem does not occur with PCI-X Smart Array cards or PCIe Smart Array cards plugged into other slots. 3. If the Integrity Integrated Lights-Out (ilo 2) Advanced Pack has been enabled for the integrated ilo 2 Management Processor, then any USB mouse that is connected will work as expected during the installation but will be ignored by the X11 server once the system has been installed. To use the USB mouse in the installed system, remove the file /etc/x11/xorg.conf and restart the X11 server. Note that if this is done, only the USB mouse will function and any ilo 2 vkvm mouse that has been configured, will be ignored. 4. The vkvm mouse enabled in the Integrity Integrated Lights-Out (ilo 2) Advanced Pack will be ignored during installation. The vkvm mouse will function with the X11 server was the system has been installed. Another user interface instead of vkvm should be used for the installation. 5. No support for uncertified RPM packages. If you add uncertified RPM packages to the operating system (for example, from an open source development repository), it will not be supported by Novell. Novell supports only RPM packages bundled in supported Linux distributions for Integrity servers and official SLES Service Packs for those distributions. HP supports the Linux software it distributes. 6. No support for systems with a recompiled kernel. Although you may recompile your kernel to change configuration parameters, HP does not support systems on which you have recompiled your kernel for any other reason (for example, for kernel source code changes). Supported customizations: a. Modifying configuration options found in /usr/src/linux-version-versionnumber/configs to set values or make modules static or dynamically loadable. b. Changing boot-time parameters found in /usr/src/linux/documentation/kernel-parameters.txt (with the kernel-source /rpm). Known Issues 7

8 7. Before installing or booting SLES 10 on an npartition on an rx7620, rx8620, or Integrity Superdome SX1000 server, set the ACPI configuration value to acpiconfig single-pci-domain. For rx7620, rx8620, or Integrity Superdome SX1000 servers booting SLES 10: a. At the EFI Shell prompt, type acpiconfig single-pci-domain and press Enter. b. Type reset and press Enter. For rx7640 and rx8640 booting SLES10: a. At the EFI Shell prompt, type acpiconfig default and press Enter. b. Type reset and press Enter. 8. System is unbootable after adding new disks. When you add new disks, the system may fail with one of the following messages: init= or VFS root not found To fix the problem: a. Remove any disks you've added since you last booted your system. b. Invoke the following command: parted /dev/sdx where sdx is the disk where your root partition resides. c. Use the name command to assign forward slash (/) as a LABEL to the root file system. The help name from inside parted explains the syntax you should use, for example, name 1 / d. Manually verify root= "LABEL= /" is in each image section of the /boot/efi/suse/elilo.conf file. ==== sample elilo.conf for mounting root partition by label ==== default=linux timeout=50 prompt image=vmlinuz label = Linux append = "" initrd = initrd root="label=/" ==== sample elilo.conf for mounting root partition by label ==== e. Manually verify LABEL"=/" entry is in the /etc/fstab. ===== sample fstab for mounting root device by label ===== LABEL=/ / reiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 1 /dev/sda1 /boot/efi vfat defaults 0 0 /dev/sda2 swap swap defaults 0 0 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0 debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0 usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0 devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0 ===== sample fstab for mounting root device by label ===== 9. If you want rx7620 or rx8620 server hardware to power off when the shutdown -h command or poweroff command is issued, run the acpiconfig enable softpowerdown 8

9 command from the EFI shell and reset the npartition to make the ACPI configuration take effect. The normal behavior on rx7620 and rx8620 servers is for an npartition to be made inactive (all cells are in a boot-is-blocked state) when shutdown -h or poweroff is issued from the SLES command line. This behavior is established with the acpiconfig disable powerdown setting, which is the normal setting for the single-pci-domain ACPI configuration. On HP Integrity Superdome servers, an npartition is always made inactive when halted from the operating system (for example, after shutdown -h), and this behavior cannot be changed. When softpowerdown is enabled on an rx7620 or rx8620 server, if one npartition is defined in the server then halting the operating system powers off the server cabinet (including all cells and I/O chassis). On an rx7620 or rx8620 server with multiple npartitions, halting the operating system from an npartition with softpowerdown enabled causes only the resources on the local npartition to be powered off. You can run the acpiconfig command with no arguments to check the current setting and the softpowerdown setting; however, softpowerdown information is displayed only when different from normal behavior. To power on hardware that has been powered off, use the PE command at the management processor command menu. To make an inactive npartition active, use the management processor BO command to boot the npartition past the boot-is-blocked state. 10. HP supports up to two I/O chassis per hard partition for the rx7620 and HP Integrity Superdome SX1000. HP supports up to four I/O chassis per hard partition for the rx SCSI errors and resets for any reason cause system failures. For example, if your disks have a problem such as a parity or disk error that causes a SCSI reset, the system will fail. Combining a Seagate drive with the ds2100 disk carrier causes electrical problems on the SCSI bus and subsequent reset attempts that also result in system failure. Do not use Seagate drives with this disk carrier. 12. A package will fail to install if the system clock is not set properly (as indicated in Bugzilla 56902). Ensure the system clock is set properly before attempting any installs. 13. Do not run the "Test X Configuration" when installing the system. It triggers the start of a second X server, which when saving or restoring fonts causes an MCA. Upon completion of installation, the user should upgrade the xorg-x11-server package by either downloading the recommended update from the patch support database, or installing it from YOU. This update will resolve this problem. 14. SLES10 obsoletes mii_tool, preventing the user from being able to query a Tulip-based network card such as the A5506B (as indicated in Bugzilla ). 15. The autoinst.xml file written by YaST after installation will format drives even if they were not touched during the installation of the system (as indicated in Bugzilla ). The user should take care to modify this file to handle their hard disks appropriately before attempting to use the file. 16. If installing from the CD set, the user cannot install to a disk presented via a Qlogic 2Gb FibreChannel card because the Qlogic firmware is missing from the initrd (as indicated in Bugzilla ). To work around this issue, install using either network media or the DVD. Installation from physical CD media to disks connected via QLogic 2Gb FibreChannel cards will fail after the first reboot. Use DVD media or network installation sources instead. 17. The cdrecord program may hang when burning a CD-RW disk with unsupported media using certain models of CD/DVD-ROM Combo and DVD+RW drives shipped in rx1600, rx1620, rx2600, rx2620, and rx4640 servers. Use only approved HP CD-RW media to prevent burn hangs. Try different brands of media if HP media is not available. Known Issues 9

10 18. The ELILO bootloader can pass command-line options to the Linux kernel. The max_addr= and mem= options limit the amount of memory used by the kernel. Some versions of the kernel handle these arguments incorrectly, resulting in an MCA that crashes the system during boot. If the system boots successfully, there is no risk of a crash due to this problem. Booting with max_addr= or mem= is sometimes useful for debugging problems, but is not a tested feature. A similar effect can be achieved by deconfiguring (with the EFI dimmconfig command) or physically removing DIMMs. 19. System panics may occur on Integrity servers running Linux that have fibre channel (FC) storage arrays directly connected. If you plan to connect FC storage to Integrity Servers running Linux, you must connect through a FC switch. For the BL860c Blade servers, customers must use either the FC switch module (AE370A/AE371A/AE372A) or an external FC switch. 20. After installing the operating system, if a message similar to the following is displayed, you will need to take action. Loading.: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Load of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SP2 failed: Not Found Press any key to continue To resolve this problem, enter the following commands: # reconnect -r # map -r Then reboot. This can be done by exiting the shell (using the exit command) and reselecting the EFI boot menu entry. 21. When Linux boots on an mid-range/high-end (cellular) IA-64 machine with discontiguous memory, a cell may end up in a state where it has too little contiguous memory available, and could cause an MCA. If you experience this issue, try one of the following methods to resolve the problem: a. Try changing the memory configuration so that the memory in each cell is equal. b. Try changing the CLM (Cell Local Memory) setting to increase the size of contiguous memory. If the system was working previously, try the pdt command at the EFI prompt. If there are PDT entries, consider replacing the bad memory. 22. The Kernel Debugger (KDB) is included in SLES 10. When a Transfer of Control (TOC) is issued, instead of producing a dump, the SLES 10 kernel enters the KDB. This process may cause issues, and HP recommends that you do not use TOC. 23. This problem is specific to the LSI1068 SAS I/O controller in the rx2660, BL860c and the BL870c. The mpt driver included in SLES10 SP2 does not have the necessary agent components required by HP System Insight Manager. To fix this problem, HP has qualified a special version of the mpt driver, which can be downloaded from the drivers area of 10

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