Re: [LinuxBIOS] Is this system supported? SUN FIRE X4100

[Lu, Yinghai]

1. Is there anything special in BIOS to be done for making serial over
LAN or IPMI over LAN working with your BMC daughter card...? I mean
connection to NIC shared or I2C.
2. Good to hear that separated FLASH for LSI...
3. Can you check the protocol for USB that BMC simulated? OHCI or UHCI
or EHCI only?

YH

-----Original Message-----
From: Duncan Laurie [mailto:[e-mail]] 
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 11:13 AM
To: Lu, Yinghai
Cc: Frank Rust; [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [LinuxBIOS] Is this system supported? SUN FIRE X4100

On Mon, 10 Apr 2006, Lu, Yinghai wrote:
> What OS are you going to use?
>
> Things to be checked
> settings for to make management card working

Nothing required IIRC, but optional features such as the boot
mailbox are available.  The service processor does not have
an RTC so it relies on the BIOS to set its time with Set SEL
Time command but this could be easily done after boot with
the OpenIPMI driver and ipmitool script.

Flash of system BIOS can be done through the service processor
as it has hooks into the LPC bus (system must be in reset for
this to work).  This means a LinuxBIOS port would not be overly
dangerous since you can always flash a working BIOS by reloading
SP firmware (which includes a system BIOS).
> Is the LSI FW on BIOS flash or another separate flash?
> Boot from SAS raid directly? We may need to use big IDE flash for

using tiny kernel and kexec...
>

LSI firmware is on a separate flash.  Disk boot will be tricky
but getting network boot working should be easier.  Boot over
redirected USB via service processor might also work...

-duncan

[LinuxBIOS] Is this system supported? SUN FIRE X4100

[Duncan Laurie]

On Mon, 10 Apr 2006, Lu, Yinghai wrote:
> Is there anything special in BIOS to be done for making serial over
>
> LAN or IPMI over LAN working with your BMC daughter card...? I mean
> connection to NIC shared or I2C.

I don't recall the details; its possible there is some BIOS
interaction involved in setting up the SuperIO for serial mux.
> Good to hear that separated FLASH for LSI...
> Can you check the protocol for USB that BMC simulated? OHCI or UHCI
>
> or EHCI only?

It should be OHCI.  I remember booting over virtual USB was
rather slow at USB1.1 but infinitely useful.

-duncan
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Duncan Laurie [mailto:[e-mail]] 
> Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 11:13 AM
> To: Lu, Yinghai
> Cc: Frank Rust; [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: [LinuxBIOS] Is this system supported? SUN FIRE X4100
>
> On Mon, 10 Apr 2006, Lu, Yinghai wrote:
> > What OS are you going to use?
> >
> > Things to be checked
> > settings for to make management card working
>
> Nothing required IIRC, but optional features such as the boot
> mailbox are available.  The service processor does not have
> an RTC so it relies on the BIOS to set its time with Set SEL
> Time command but this could be easily done after boot with
> the OpenIPMI driver and ipmitool script.
>
> Flash of system BIOS can be done through the service processor
> as it has hooks into the LPC bus (system must be in reset for
> this to work).  This means a LinuxBIOS port would not be overly
> dangerous since you can always flash a working BIOS by reloading
> SP firmware (which includes a system BIOS).
> > Is the LSI FW on BIOS flash or another separate flash?
> > Boot from SAS raid directly? We may need to use big IDE flash for
>
> using tiny kernel and kexec...
> >
>
> LSI firmware is on a separate flash.  Disk boot will be tricky
> but getting network boot working should be easier.  Boot over
> redirected USB via service processor might also work...
>
> -duncan