ollie lho <ollie(a)sis.com.tw> writes:
> On Tue, 2002-09-17 at 07:38, Eric W Biederman wrote:
> > interesting problem, and hasn't been fully solved yet. Currently I
> > connect the serial port to a box with a lot of serial ports, and
> > that box is network accessible.
> >
>
> Do you know if there is an KVM switch equivalent for serial
> port ?? How do you monitor multiple LinuxBIOS boxes except using many
> minicom ??
You get a terminal server such as a Cyclades:
http://www.cyclades.com/products/ts_series.php
The nice thing about a serial port is that it is realistic to always
log everything even from a large amount of machines. So it's quite
possible to build a central monitoring application that automatically
records oopses that appear on an serial console and forward them to
the system administrator, and with the logs the system administrator
could see what actions led up to the oops.
> How do you connect these 350 nodes "physically" to you console ?? Do you
> need many consoles or is there any think like "hub" the LAN ??
With 32-port terminal servers thats just a dozen of them.
/Christer
--
"Just how much can I get away with and still go to heaven?"
Freelance consultant specializing in device driver programming for Linux
Christer Weinigel <christer(a)weinigel.se> http://www.weinigel.se
We are down to questions that are definitely appropriate for the list.
"Jeffrey B. Layton" <laytonjb(a)bellsouth.net> writes:
> Eric W Biederman wrote:
>
> >"Jeffrey B. Layton" <laytonjb(a)bellsouth.net> writes:
> >
> >
> >>Could you
> >>list some pros and cons for a prospective customer that
> >>is thinking about switching to LinuxBIOS but they are
> >>used to the regular old BIOS?
> >>
> >
> >The quick list.
> >
> >Pros:
> >Better serial console support.
> >Better debuggability.
> >Better manageability. (You can do everything under Linux)
> >Quick boot times.
> >Has been tested on big (1000 node) clusters.
> >Vendors care about cluster issues.
> >You get the source.
> >
> >Cons:
> >Boots differently.
> >Harder to find people supporting it.
> >
>
> I've got a question about the serial console support and the better
> manageability. With LinuxBIOS can you put BIOS messages
> across the network to the master node from power on? Or do
> you have to wait until you get to Lilo (and then use something
> like netconsole in the kernel)?
You can do serial from power on. Over the network is a more
interesting problem, and hasn't been fully solved yet. Currently I
connect the serial port to a box with a lot of serial ports, and
that box is network accessible.
NIC hardware is noticeably more complex than serial ports so getting
a network console going from power on is still an open issue. I don't
know that it has been tested much yet.
> As for the manageability issue. How is the cluster more manageable
> with LinuxBIOS (I'm not being argumentative, but rather curious)?
>
> For example, if I have a cluster that's pretty stable where I don't lose
> many nodes and I don't need to change the BIOS at all, then what
> does LinuxBIOS give me in terms of manageability?
Manageability is really about when things fail, and have problems,
not when they work. But even when things are mostly working
you can set your BIOS options the very first time from Linux, and trust
they are getting set the same as every other node. You get a reliable
network boot, with etherboot. You get a fast boot. You get messages
over the serial console from power on.
Maybe some of these things are only really annoying when the don't
exist and you have lots of hardware. For me I like the ability
to do a full install including flashing the BIOS on 350 nodes in under
10 minutes.
But manageability comes down to the fact that the little things are
getting fixed in LinuxBIOS so it is not a pain to work with, after
the learning curve.
Eric
I just tested the mptable utility. There is a bit of a hack in there for
IOAPICs, but it basically does the right thing for the supermicro p4dpe
I'm working with.
So the most recent, tested on one motherboard version, is now committed.
It generates C code that looks identical (mostly) to the mptable.c code in
other directories.
ron
Looks like linuxbios support is in there.
Has anyone built from 3.0 for linuxbios?
I am assuming you can just built memtest (it's an elf) and use that as a
payload for linuxbios.
ron
Hi,
My name is Lee and my machine has a ECS Elitegroup K7S5A
motherboard. It has an AMD AthlonXP 1800+ processor and (apparently) a
SiS735 chipset. It also has a 2Mb Flash EEPROM for the bios (AMIBIOS
right now).
Will the BIOS slot take a DoC or should I use regular replacement
Flash EEPROM and is it possible to use an EEPROM/DoC with greater
capacity than the current EEPROM? I'm also told I should use a Zero
Insertion Force socket for the EEPROM.
Do you know a UK supplier for the M-Systems DiskOnChip because I've
tried Maplin Electronics' website with no avail and google UK has found
little of any use. Also, where would you reccomend I get started with
LinuxBIOS?
Lee Causier, Signing off.
This now creates code that can be compiled into linuxbios. I have tested
building with it but can't try running it just yet. I will test it later
today but wanted to put it out for comments and corrections.
The code is still ugly, I need to format it, but wanted to let people see
it. It is adopted from a freebsd base. I ripped out getopt as getopt now
varies too much: it has options on freebsd that appear not to exist on
linux.
ron
Well I need (for the first time) to build an MP table. Actually just
modify one.
The ideal case is that somebody write a program like getpir that just
dumps the current MP table. Anybody have one :-)
ron
All,
Quick question here.
I am going to be trying my luck at LinuxBIOS on a Compaq ds10L here and
I was wondering if I require anything besides the code in the current
CVS image. On a first look it seemed that some fo the source has not
been checked in for the alpha, but that maybe my newness with the project.
Thanks much
Kurt
Hi,
I just got a M787CL+ v3.0(http://www.pcchips.com.tw/M787cl+v30.html)
which is as the same as m758lt+ with VIA C3 1GHZ. It works with m758lt+ config
without any problem, and it costs only US$15 more than m758lt+. I think it is
a very nice alternative to EPIA.
-Andrew
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