SoftReboot WhitePaper HP Part Number: 5900-2577 Published: March 2013
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Contents About This Document.....................................................................................4 Intended Audience....................................................................................................................4 Typographic Conventions...........................................................................................................4 Executive Summary........................................................................................
About This Document This document discusses the features of SoftReboot. SoftReboot solution is a feature on HP-UX 11iv3 operating system environment. Intended Audience This document is intended for developers, system administrators, and customers seeking information about the features of SoftReboot. Typographic Conventions This document uses the following typographical conventions: IMPORTANT: This alert provides essential information to explain a concept or to complete a task.
Executive Summary This white paper addresses only the following supported system configurations. Table 1 Supported System Configurations Requirement Description Operating system SoftReboot feature is supported from HP-UX B.11.31.1109 fusion release onwards i.e. HP-UX 11iv3 operating system environment. Supported platforms • SoftReboot feature is currently available on the i“a64 HP Superdome server SD32B/SD64B”, HP Integrity Superdome 2 (SD2) 9300 processor and HP Integrity Superdome 2 CB900s i4 blades.
1 Technologies / Features SoftReboot feature reduces the operating system reboot time experienced during routine system maintenance. SoftReboot achieves this downtime reduction by skipping the platform hardware reset and booting the next kernel directly from the current operating system instance. The time saved due to SoftReboot solution varies across platforms and different hardware configurations of the same platform. Hence, the down time savings due to SoftReboot are not quantifiable.
2 Installation and Uninstallation Installation Post1203 To install the SoftRebootEnh, perform the following steps: 1. Download enabler patches to target machine from http://h20566.www2.hp.com/portal/ site/hpsc/public/. 2. Install the SoftRebootEnh bundle from B.11.31.1203 OE that is available electronically and on media. SoftRebootEnh bundle is available B.11.31.1203 OE onwards. 3. Verify supported platform. 4.
EAP 1. Download the SoftReboot bundle from: mdepi.ind.hp.com:/pub/FRB/sboot_ncf_bundle_30th.depot • 2. swinstall -x autoreboot=true -s \* Download the software distributor version to support swinstall with special softreboot flag from: mdepi.ind.hp.com:/pub/FRB/SD.
3 Configuration and Usage SoftReboot functionality requires both “rbloader” and “uxex” DLKMs to be loaded. Upon installation of the SoftReboot product, these two DLKMs are automatically configured to be loaded. Reboot and shutdown utilities have been enhanced for SoftReboot and provide a new option, -S, to initiate a SoftReboot instead of normal reboot. SoftReboot can also be invoked as part of swinstall SD command via a new option -x softreboot.
4 Behavior and Use case Examples When SoftReboot feature is enabled with reboot/shutdown/swinstall options, system reboots by omitting firmware reset and the next kernel is loaded directly from the current kernel instance. Due to this, the bootloader stage is completely skipped. In the current release, the next kernel configured for boot is automatically loaded. With this, the next kernel boot options cannot be specified.
5 Constraints Hardware configuration changes Primary boot path changes If the boot path is changed using setboot to a different disk, the SoftReboot should not be invoked. Instead normal reboot should be issued. HyperThreading settings If the hyper threading settings are changed using setboot -m ON/OFF then those settings cannot take effect across a SoftReboot. To effect the settings, normal reboot without -S option should be done.
A SoftReboot Software Depot List A complete list of contents of SoftRebootEnh software bundle is as follows: hpkdbia4# swlist -l product SoftRebootEnh # Initializing... # Contacting target "hpkdbia4"... # # Target: hpkdbia4:/ # # SoftRebootEnh B.11.31.%2011_1007_DP HPUX SoftReboot SoftRebootEnh.SoftReboot B.11.31.%2011_1007_DP SoftReboot Enablement hpkdbia4# swlist -l fileset SoftRebootEnh # Initializing... # Contacting target "hpkdbia4"... # # Target: hpkdbia4:/ # # SoftRebootEnh B.11.31.
B Messages During SoftReboot Diagnostics and Driver messages during SoftReboot During a SoftReboot the user may notice warnings or errors from the diagnostics and other I/O drivers. These messages are safe and do not affect the behavior of the next kernel booted. A typical set of messages from diagnostics driver is as follows: The diagnostic logging facility has started receiving excessive errors from the I/O subsystem.
