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IBM BladeCenter Deployment Guide
32 http://w3-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP100564
© 2006 IBM Version 3.0, 3/10/2006
irmware fix is released. This can be done by simply confirming that the
ation 2: Leave read-only floppy diskette in the drive. This prevents the "Medium not
r is done with the cdrom and/or floppy,
med when the IBM Remote Disk is used. The IBM Remote Disk is
6.
7.
One final note on this item: currently the media tray is required for installing Linux on the blades,
but should only be needed in rare circumstances after that. Additionally, since there appear to be
several combinations of events that will cause the EFI shell boot option to be restored in the boot
sequence on a blade (see item 4), it is recommended that boot sequence be confirmed when an
HS40 is rebooted until the f
HS40 boots from the HBA during a restart. So these items should be included as required steps
for building a Linux blade.
Modific
present" errors from occurring. This is not a complete solution but is a good start. See #3 for
more.
Modification 3: When media tray is assigned to a blade, it will automatically hotplug itself and the
cdrom and floppy drive will be available for use. When use
media tray should be unassigned from the blade and/or the usb-storage module should be
removed. The command for this is "rmmod usb-storage".
This step should also be perfor
the feature where an image, or even the local floppy or CDROM drive can be mounted on the
blade from the local machine.
I have not seen anything to indicate that a Red Hat kernel fix can be completed to prevent these error
messages from being generated.
floppy.o error messages. Adding 'alias block-major-2 off' to /etc/modules.conf will get rid of that noise.
There is a know bug in anaconda which causes the installation of Red Hat 2.1 Update 3 to fail in most
cases on an HS40. (
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=113346) This is the
charming “
You’re running me on a live system! That’s incredibly stupid.” message and has been
addressed in errata (rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2004-148.html) which is included in RHAS 2.1
Update 4.
An error message of "pc_key_b: controller malfunction (0xA7)" is seen many times when RHEL 3 is
booting during a five-second interval. This problem exists because the IBM eServer BladeCenter
HS20, type 8843, is the first legacy free x86 system, and therefore, does not have a standard
8.
R-57605
keyboard controller. This enhancement allows the operating system to use of the keyboard controller
IRQ for other devices. This error message has no negative impact to the system and can be ignored.
http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=psg1MIG
(
)
9. Linux experiences kernel panics or hangs during boot of 8843 blades. Hang typically happens when
reaching net4 frame diverter after 'real time clock driver.'
Fix is to add the usb-handoff kernel directive within the bootloader configuration file. This is intended
to resolve a problem with, rather than eliminate, usb. Here is a summary of the usb issue:
When the BIOS is configured with legacy USB support enabled it can generate a system
management interrupt (SMI) during the boot sequence. The BIOS routine which handles that action
clobbers a CPU register. That, understandably, is a bad thing as the Linux kernel does not expect its
data to be randomly changed by asynchronous events like that SMI. Whether or not the corruption is
catastrophic depends on the exact timing of events (down to the microsecond). That's why sometimes
the bootup is successful.
10. If you suffer major path problems (LIPs) or controller panics, it can hang the server indefinitely as the
system attempts to find a stable path.
11. If there is a path failure and the host is generating I/O, the boot Drive will move to the other path.
However, while this transition is occurring, the system will appear to freeze for up to 30 seconds.
Mouse support for the BladeCenter unit
The ability of the remote console applet to accurately track the location of the mouse cursor in a Linux
X Window System session depen
12.
ds on the configuration of the X Window System. Complete the
The BladeCenter Deployment Guide is intended as a personal productivity tool. It is not intended to be comprehensive and is provided for
guidance only, on an 'as is basis' without warranty of any kind. Please be aware that its contents have not been certified by IBM.