Best Practices When Deploying Linux on the HP ProLiant DL980 (updated December 2012)
21
This issue has been fixed in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP4.
The BCM5720 network controller (NC332T) does not work on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SPR4
The tg3 driver on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP4 does not recognize the BCM5720 Network interface controller
(NC332T). The workaround is to download the driver provided by HP from the following location:
h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?prodNameId=5269166&lang=en&cc=us&taskI
d=135&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=5269165
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.X and SUSE Linux Enterprise
Server 11 SPX best practices
This section describes several recommended best practices for running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.X or SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server 11 SPX on the HP ProLiant DL980 Server:
Test Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.X and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SPX workloads with Hyper-Threading (HT)
(page 21)
Enable 44-bit System Address Mode with more than 1 TB Memory (page 21)
Increase crash kernel size (page 23)
Test Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.X and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SPX
workloads with Hyper-Threading (HT)
The benefits of HT have already been described in the “Test Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 (or later) and SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server 10 SP3/SP4 workloads with Hyper-Threading (HT)” section on page 16. Again, the benefits depend
highly on the application workload and server configuration. While some applications see an overall performance boost,
some applications see no or negative performance improvement. HP highly recommends testing HT with your particular
workload.
As noted in the OS Matrix in Table 2 on page 12, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.X and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1
support up to 4096 logical processors. The supplied kernels include improved scheduling functionality, but managing a
high number of logical processors brings higher overhead. Unless your workload is proven to benefit from Hyper-
Threading, HT should be disabled in order to reduce this system overhead. You can always enable HT later if additional
CPU capacity is required.
Hyper-Threading is controlled by the system BIOS and is enabled by default on the DL980. To enable or disable Hyper-
Threading, follow the steps described in “Test Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 (or later) and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 SP3/SP4 workloads with Hyper-Threading (HT)” on page 16.
Enable 44-bit System Address Mode with more than 1 TB Memory
The default RBSU method for addressing memory on the DL980 is 40-bit mode. However, this should be changed if more
than 1 TB physical memory is installed in the system.
Note
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.X and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SPX support
44-bit System Address Mode, but Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.X or SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server 10 do not. For more information, see “Verify 40-bit mode
before OS installation” on page 18.
To enable the 44-bit System Address Mode, follow these steps:
1. During the boot process, confirm that the system is in the default 40-bit mode by looking at the RBSU splash
screen. It indicates a System Address Mode of 40-bit (see Figure 10).
2. Press F9 to run the ROM-Based Setup Utility (RBSU).