Technical data

An Overview of nPartition Boot and Reset
Boot Process for nPartitions, Cells, and HP-UX
HP System Partitions Guide: Administration for nPartitions, rev 5.1 166
Each nPartition goes through the boot process shown in Figure 4-1, from
power on to booting HP-UX:
1. Power On or Reset
The boot process starts when any of the following events occurs:
• An nPartition is reset or rebooted.
• The entire server complex is powered on.
• Power is turned on for components in the nPartition (such as
cells).
2. Processor Dependent Code (PDC)
The monarch processor on each cell runs its own copy of the PDC
firmware.
a. The boot-is-blocked (BIB) flag is set for the cell.
The BIB flag remains set until the service processor (GSP or MP)
clears it, allowing the cell to boot as part of an nPartition.
b. Another flag is set for the cell, indicating that the service
processor can post a new copy of the complex profile to the cell.
The cell’s complex profile is updated later in the boot process,
after it completes self-tests.
3. Power-On Self-Test (POST)
Each cell performs self-tests that check the processors, memory, and
firmware on the cell.
If a component fails self-tests, it is deconfigured and if possible the
cell continues booting.
Following this step, all components in the cell are known and are
tested and the cell reports its hardware configuration to the service
processor.
4. I/O Discovery
Each cell performs I/O discovery and configures I/O busses,
including: any system bus adapter (the SBA for an I/O card cage) and
its local bus adapters (LBAs, one per PCI card slot in the card cage).