Support Notes for Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS v.4.5 for HP Integrity Servers

1. From the EFI shell, enter acpiconfig single-pci-domain.
2. You should see the following output:
single-pci-domain settings have been enabled. A reset is
required for the settings to take effect.
d. Enter reset.
16. If you want rx7620, rx7640, rx8620, or rx8640 server hardware to power off when the
shutdown -h comand or poweroff command is issued, run the acpiconfig enable
softpowerdown command from the EFI shell and reset the nPartition to make the ACPI
configuration take effect.
The normal behavior on these servers is for an nPartition to be made inactive (all cells are
in a boot-is-blocked state) when shutdown -h or poweroff is issued from the Red Hat
Linux command line. This behavior is established with the acpiconfig disable
powerdown setting, which is the normal setting for the single-pci-domain ACPI configuration.
On HP Integrity Superdome servers, an nPartition is always made inactive when halted
from the operating system (for example, after shutdown -h), and this behavior cannot be
changed.
When softpowerdown is enabled on an rx7620, rx7640, rx8620, or rx8640 server, if one
nPartition is defined in the server then halting the operating system powers off the server
cabinet (including all cells and I/O chassis). On an rx7620 or rx8620 server with multiple
nPartitions, halting the operating system from an nPartition with softpowerdown enabled
causes only the resources on the local nPartition to be powered off. You can run the
acpiconfig command with no arguments to check the current setting and the
softpowerdown setting; however, softpowerdown information is displayed only when
different from normal behavior.
To power on hardware that has been powered off, use the PE command at the management
processor command menu. To make an inactive nPartition active, use the management
processor BO command to boot the nPartition past the boot-is-blocked state.
17. This note pertains to Linux running on the following systems: rx8620 and Superdome sx1000
and sx2000. On the rx8620 and Superdome sx1000, the maximum number of I/O chassis that
can be supported per hard partition (also called nPartition) is two. On Superdome sx2000,
the maximum number of I/O chassis that can be supported per hard partition is eight.
18. In a text-based installation, the partition displays from either autopartition or disk druid
will display filesystems of 1 terabyte or greater without a size suffix such as M or G. These
filesystems will appear to be much smaller than they really are.
19. Red Hat Enterprise Linux can be preloaded on the HP Integrity server disk in the factory
prior to customer shipment. In the event of a system disk failure, the recovery process of
this "factory preloaded OS image" is a "cold install" directly from the Red Hat media kit or
the Red Hat Network. For additional instructions on installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux
on an Integrity server, consult the HP integrity Essentials Foundation Pack for Linux User's
Guide.
20. Output from the Management Processor (MP) serial ports may hang due to a failure to
reassert a transmit empty interrupt in the MP UART. When used as a serial console, this
output hang may lead to a hang during Linux boot. This condition may occur on any low-end
Integrity system using the MP console port as the Linux system console. This problem does
not exist on mid-range and high-end Integrity platforms.
When rebooting the system, the user should either manually confirm the system has booted,
or use scripts to track the system boot on the serial console and automatically intervene as
necessary. The only intervention required to continue the boot process is to send a character
to produce a receiver interrupt on the console UART (for example, pressing a key). Note
that while experiencing this console hang is rare, it can happen multiple times on the same
boot cycle.
10 Support Notes for Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS v.4.5