Sun Microsystems B200X, B100S, B1600, B100X User Manual
Sun Fire™ B1600 Chassis and
B100s, B100x, and B200x Blade
Product Notes
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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Part No. 817-5626-12
May 2004, Revision A
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Contents
1. Documentation and Miscellaneous Information 1–1
1.1 Upgrading the BIOS on a B200x Server Blade 1–2
1.2 Before Installing Solaris x86 Onto a Blade 1–2
1.3 Miscellaneous Information 1–2
1.3.1 Using N1 Provisioning Software 1–2
1.3.2 Using the Sun Fire B10n Content Load Balancing Blade 1–3
1.3.3 Downloading New Firmware for Chassis Components 1–3
1.4 Viewing the Latest Documentation for the Chassis and Its Components 1–
4
1.4.1 Documentation in this Release 1–4
1.4.2 Documentation Errata 1–5
2. Linux 2–1
2.1 Installing Linux Onto a B100x or B200x Blade 2–2
2.2 Upgrading the BIOS on B200x Server Blades 2–3
2.2.1 To Upgrade the BIOS 2–3
2.3 B100x and B200x (Linux) Server Blade Issues 2–5
2.3.1 Issues Affecting the B200x Server Blade Only 2–5
2.3.2 Issues Affecting the B100x Server Blade Only 2–6
3. Solaris x86 3–1
Contents iii
3.1 Preparing to Install Solaris x86 Onto a Blade 3–1
3.1.1 Solaris x86 Drivers and Documentation 3–2
3.1.2 Overview of the Solaris x86 Installation Process 3–3
3.2 Applying Mandatory Software Patches to the Solaris x86 Install Image 3–
3
3.2.1 Downloading the B100x/B200x Mandatory Software for the
Network Install Server 3–4
3.2.2 Creating a Network Install Server 3–6
3.3 Issues Affecting B100x and B200x Server Blades That are Running Solaris
x86 3–8
3.3.1 Issues for Which You Must Apply a Workaround or Perform an
Operational Procedure 3–8
3.3.2 Error Messages That Can be Safely Ignored 3–13
3.3.3 Other Issues 3–16
4. SPARC Solaris 4–1
4.1 Installing SPARC Solaris Onto a B100s Server Blade 4–2
4.2 B100s (SPARC Solaris) Server Blade Issues 4–2
5. System Controller 5–1
5.1 Upgrading the System Controller (SC) Firmware 5–2
5.2 What To Do If You Lose Your Password for the System Controller 5–2
5.3 System Controller Software Issues 5–4
5.3.1 System Controller Firmware 1.2 5–4
5.3.2 System Controller Firmware 1.1 5–4
5.3.3 System Controller Firmware 1.0 5–6
6. The System Chassis’s Integrated Switch 6–1
6.1 Switch Firmware Issues 6–2
6.2 Issues Affecting the Web Graphical User Interface to the Switch 6–8
6.3 The Term “Trunk” Meaning Either an Aggregated Link Or a Tagged VLAN
Connection 6–10
iv Sun Fire™ B1600 Chassis and B100s, B100x, and B200x Blade Product Notes • May 2004
6.3.1 Aggregated Links 6–10
6.3.2 Switch-to-switch Tagged VLAN Trunk Connections 6–11
6.4 Setting up a Tagged VLAN Trunk With Cisco Switches 6–12
Contents v
vi Sun Fire™ B1600 Chassis and B100s, B100x, and B200x Blade Product Notes • May 2004
CHAPTER
1
Documentation and Miscellaneous Information
These Product Notes contain important information about this release of the Sun
Fire B1600 blade system chassis. This is the first release of the product to support
Enterprise Linux version 3.0 and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8, running on B100x
and B200x server blades.
This chapter contains the following sections:
■ Section 1.1, “Upgrading the BIOS on a B200x Server Blade” on page 1-2
■ Section 1.2, “Before Installing Solaris x86 Onto a Blade” on page 1-2
■ Section 1.3, “Miscellaneous Information” on page 1-2
■ Section 1.4.1, “Documentation in this Release” on page 1-4
1-1
1.1 Upgrading the BIOS on a B200x Server Blade
To run Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 3.0 or SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 on a
B200x server blade, you must first upgrade the BIOS to version 1.1.32. This version
of the BIOS is available from the following website:
http://wwws.sun.com/software/download/network.html
For information on how to upgrade the BIOS on B200x blades with Linux installed,
see Section 2.2, “Upgrading the BIOS on B200x Server Blades” on page 2-3 in these
Product Notes.
1.2 Before Installing Solaris x86 Onto a Blade
Before you start to install Solaris x86 by following the instructions in the Sun Fire
B100x and B200x Server Blade Installation and Setup Guide, please follow the steps in
“Preparing to Install Solaris x86 Onto a Blade” on page 3-1 in these Product Notes.
1.3 Miscellaneous Information
1.3.1 Using N1 Provisioning Software
If you are installing N1 Provisioning software, you do not need to set up a Network
Install Server. Before you do the System Chassis software setup, read the N1
Provisioning Server 3.0 Blades Edition Implementation Guide. The Implementation Guide
explains what you need to do to accommodate the N1 Provisioning software
installation.
1-2 Sun Fire™ B1600 Chassis and B100s, B100x, and B200x Blade Product Notes • May 2004
1.3.2 Using the Sun Fire B10n Content Load Balancing Blade
The Sun Fire B10n Content Load Balancing Blade is now available to provide load
balancing across server blades in the Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis and other
horizontally scaled Sun platforms.
To use the B10n Content Load Balancing Blade, you need to upgrade the firmware
on the System Controller to version 1.1 or later. To perform the upgrade of the
System Controller firmware, refer to the Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis
Administration Guide (Chapter 10).
To configure and use the B10n Content Load Balancing Blade, refer to the Sun Fire
B10n Content Load Balancing Blade Administration Guide. For the latest information on
version 2.1 of the Sun Fire B10n Content Load Balancing Blade, see Sun Fire B10n
Content Load Balancing Blade Version 1.2 Update Product Notes (817-6211-10)
1.3.3 Downloading New Firmware for Chassis Components
For the latest publicly available firmware, check the following websites:
http://wwws.sun.com/software/download/network.html
http://sunsolve.sun.com
http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/b100x/
http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/b200x/
Chapter 1 Documentation and Miscellaneous Information 1-3
1.4 Viewing the Latest Documentation for the Chassis and Its Components
For the most up-to-date documentation, including the most up-to-date Product
Notes, visit the following Sun documentation website:
http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hardware/docs/Servers/
1.4.1 Documentation in this Release
Documentation for the Sun Fire B1600 blade system chassis and its components is
provided on the CD supplied with a chassis or blade. The documentation is in
Adobe Acrobat PDF format, therefore you need to use Acrobat Reader to view the
files. To download Acrobat Reader (at no cost), go to the following website:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat
This release of the Sun Fire B1600 blade system chassis includes the following
documents:
■ Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis Software Quick Start Poster
■ Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis Hardware Quick Start Poster
■ Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis Hardware Installation Guide
■ Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis Software Setup Guide
■ Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis Administration Guide
■ Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis Switch Administration Guide
■ Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis Compliance and Safety Manual
■ Sun Fire B100x and B200x Server Blade Installation and Setup Guide
■ Sun Fire B10n Content Load Balancing Blade Administration Guide
To access this PDF documentation, launch Adobe Acrobat Reader and open the file
called HOME.PDF located in the DOCS directory.
1-4 Sun Fire™ B1600 Chassis and B100s, B100x, and B200x Blade Product Notes • May 2004
1.4.2 Documentation Errata
■ In the printed version of the Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis Compliance and
Safety Manual (817-2571-10), the contact details given for Zuheir Totari are out of
date. The correct contact details are as follows:
Sun Microsystems Ltd Sparc House
Guillemont Park Blackwater
Camberley GU17 9QC
United Kingdom Sun Microsystems
Tel: +44 (0)1252 420113 Fax: +44 (0)1252 421659
Chapter 1 Documentation and Miscellaneous Information 1-5
1-6 Sun Fire™ B1600 Chassis and B100s, B100x, and B200x Blade Product Notes • May 2004
CHAPTER
2
Linux
This chapter contains the following sections:
■ Section 2.1, “Installing Linux Onto a B100x or B200x Blade” on page 2-2
■ Section 2.2, “Upgrading the BIOS on B200x Server Blades” on page 2-3
■ Section 2.3, “B100x and B200x (Linux) Server Blade Issues” on page 2-5
2-1
2.1 Installing Linux Onto a B100x or B200x Blade
To install the Linux operating system onto a blade, you must first build a PXE boot
installation environment.
The software required to build a PXE boot installation environment is available on
the CD supplied with the blade.
To install Linux on B100x or B200x server blades you will need the following:
■ The Sun Fire B1600 Platform Documentation, Drivers, and Installation CD. This CD
includes the drivers required for installing Linux on a server blade, and all the
documentation for the B1600 system chassis and its components.
■ Installation CDs for the version of Linux you are installing. The following
operating systems are supported in this release:
■ Red Hat Enterprise Linux, version 3.0
■ Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Advanced Server 2.1 update 2
■ SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8, service pack 3
■ A PXE boot server machine for installing Linux onto the server blade. This
machine must be running one of the following operating systems:
■ Red Hat Enterprise Linux, version 3.0
■ Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Advanced Server 2.1 update 2
■ SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8, service pack 3
■ Solaris, version 9 or later.
Refer to Chapter 4 of the Sun Fire B100x and B200x Server Blade Installation and Setup
Guide for information on how to perform a PXE boot installation.
2-2 Sun Fire™ B1600 Chassis and B100s, B100x, and B200x Blade Product Notes • May 2004
2.2 Upgrading the BIOS on B200x Server Blades
To run Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 3.0 or SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8,
service pack 3 on a B200x server blade, the blade must have BIOS version 1.1.32
installed. This version of the BIOS is available from the following website:
http://wwws.sun.com/software/download/network.html
You can upgrade the BIOS on the blade using the biosupdate utility. This utility
loads a device driver called mtdbios, performs the BIOS update using the slflash
utility, and then unloads the mtdbios driver.
The biosupdate utility is installed on the server blade as part of the PXE boot
installation process. For information on the PXE boot installation, see Chapter 4 of
the Sun Fire B100x and B200x Server Blade Installation and Setup Guide (available on
the CD supplied with the blade).
Caution – When upgrading the BIOS, do not interrupt the process by resetting or
powering down the blade. Interrupting the upgrade will permanently damage the
blade.
Note – If the BIOS upgrade fails, a failure message is displayed on the screen and in
/var/log/messages. If this problem occurs do not reset or power off the blade.
Contact your Sun Beta support manager for advise.
2.2.1 To Upgrade the BIOS
1. Log into the blade for which you want to update the BIOS.
At the SC prompt, type:
sc> console sn
where n is the number of the slot containing the blade.
Chapter 2 Linux 2-3
2. Check the version of the BIOS currently running on the blade, to establish
whether the upgrade is necessary:
modprobe mtdbios
cat /proc/BIOS
BIOS Vendor: AMI
BIOS Version: P1.1.32
BIOS Date: 01/19/2004
Manufacturer: Sun Microsystems
Product: Sun Fire B200x
rmmod mtdbios
3. Copy the BIOS image from the beta website to a known location on the blade.
4. Run the biosupdate command:
biosupdate bios2p.rom-032.bin
The blade prompt returns when the update is complete.
Caution – Do not restart the blade while the update is in progress.
5. When the update is complete, reboot the blade:
shutdown -r now
You can check the BIOS version when you restart the blade.
2-4 Sun Fire™ B1600 Chassis and B100s, B100x, and B200x Blade Product Notes • May 2004
2.3 B100x and B200x (Linux) Server Blade Issues
The following problems have been observed on both B100x and B200x server blades:
■ 4868095: Red Hat Advanced Server 2.1 does not support layer 2 VLANs
The Advanced Server kernel (version 2.4.9-e.3) does not support layer 2 VLANs.
This means that the sunconfig utility is not installed on blades running Red Hat
Advanced Server 2.1. If you are using blades with Red Hat Advanced Server 2.1
installed, you must configure the switch to use only untagged VLANs.
If you require VLAN support, you must install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 or
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 service pack 3.
■ 4853227: Spurious interrupt messages appear in /var/log/messages
Spurious interrupt IRQ7 messages may appear in /var/log/messages. These
messages can be ignored.
2.3.1 Issues Affecting the B200x Server Blade Only
The following problems have been observed on B200x server blades only:
■ 44932162: The BSC driver displays names of LEDs not present on the blade
When the BSC driver is loaded, five extraneous LED files appear in the
/proc/bsc directory. The LED status for these files is reported as “not present”
and they can be ignored.
■ 4987508: Kernel panic occurs during booting of B200x server blades (el-3.0u1)
If you attempt to boot Enterprise Linux 3.0 update 1 with APM enabled, the
system will panic. This is due to expectations made by the APM subsystem,
which is considered unsafe to run on a multi-processor machine. Without
enabling APM (or ACPI), the /sbin/poweroff command will not power off the
blade.
This problem has been worked around using the bsc driver. The bsc driver
notifies the hardware of the intent to power off, and the hardware powers off the
blade 10 seconds later. If the bsc driver is not loaded at power-off time, the system
will fail to power off.
Chapter 2 Linux 2-5
■ 4991972: B200x blade locks into a repeated “boot net” loop following a BIOS
update
The CMOS footprint may change between revisions of the BIOS. If this is the case,
and the CMOS is not reset to its default values during the blade reboot following
a BIOS update, the CMOS configuration may become corrupted and result in
repeated network boots.
To avoid this problem, after updating the BIOS on a B200x blade, reset all CMOS
settings to their default values when you next reboot the blade. You can do this by
typing the bootmode reset_nvram sn command at the SC prompt (where n is
the number of the slot containing the blade), or by entering the BIOS setup menu
and loading the BIOS defaults.
■ 5017529: New 1 Gbyte DIMMs used in manufacturing appear as 2x512Mbyte
DIMMs
When new 1 Gbyte DIMMs are inserted in DIMM slots on the B200x blade, the
ECC driver incorrectly identifies the memory as 2x512Mbyte DIMMs.
This is a cosmetic issue, and can be ignored.
■ 5015866: Blade does not recognize an SSC which is inserted after a reboot
When a blade is booted without an SSC present, the network interfaces normally
attached to the missing switch will not be operational after the SSC is re-inserted.
This problem is fixed when the network interface is brought down and up again.
2.3.2 Issues Affecting the B100x Server Blade Only
The following problem has been observed on B100x server blades only:
■ 4915711: The Real Time Clock (RTC) is updated when resetting from the SC
When you use the reset command from the SC prompt, the blade updates the
Real Time Cock (RTC) from the system controller through the BSC. The RTC
should be set only when the blade is powered on.
■ 4979474: The bsc driver cannot allocate IRQ9 or IRQ5 (SuSE with kernel 2.4.21)
The Operating System hangs when the bsc driver attempts to allocate IRQs 9 and
5. This is due to an incorrect ACPI table entry for the bsc hardware.
You can avoid this problem by booting the kernel using the pci=noacpi
argument.
■ 4906666: The BIOS boot menu displays network names incorrectly
This is a cosmetic issue and may be ignored.
2-6 Sun Fire™ B1600 Chassis and B100s, B100x, and B200x Blade Product Notes • May 2004
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