Interface Card OL* Support Guide

Chapter 1

PCI Card OL* Overview and Concepts

Important Terms and Concepts

In many cases, other interface cards and slots within the system are dependent upon the target card

• If the target card is a multiple-function card (MFC), suspending drivers for the target card slot also

suspends individual drivers for the multiple hardware paths on that card. If the target card has multiple

ports, then all individual ports will be suspended and then resumed when the card is replaced.

• In currently shipped systems, a power domain consists of a single card slot, however future systems may

provide multi-card power domains. In this case, if the target card slot is in a multi-card power domain and

you temporarily stop power to the target card slot, you will also stop power to any other card slots

(affected card slots) in that same power domain.

During card replacement, pdweb & olrad perform a Critical Resource Analysis, which checks all ports on the

target card for critical resources that would be temporarily unavailable while the card is shut down.

Table 1-1 Terms and Meanings

Term Meaning

OL* All aspects of On-line Addition (OLA) and On-line Replacement (OLR) of PCI & PCI-X

interface cards. On-line Delete (OLD) is not supported.

Power Domain A grouping of 1 or more interface card slots that are powered on or off as a unit.

Current systems have each slot in a separate power domain.

target card

target card slot

The interface card which will be added or replaced using OL*, and the card slot it

resides in.

affected card

affected card slot

Interface cards and the card slots they reside in which are in the same power domain

as the target slot. Currently multi-slot power domains are not implemented.

pdweb A web-based tool for performing OL* and managing slots and cards, See “pdweb -

Peripheral Device Tool Web Interface” on page 23.

Attention Button A hardware tool for performing OL* and managing slots and cards, See “Attention

Button - Direct Slot Control” on page 67

MRL Manual Retention Latch. A physical latch that locks a card into position in a slot and

inﬂuences power to the slot. Also referred to as a latch.

OLX Divider A physical divider situated between slots and features a power LED, an attention

LED, the Attention Button, and an Manual Retention Latch. The OLX Divider might

not contain the Attention Button. See your platform documentation for speciﬁcs on

LED and Attention Button positioning.

CRA A system check for critical resources on all affected hardware paths associated with

the speciﬁed slot, analyzing ﬁle systems, volumes, processes, networking, swap, and

dump; and generates a report of affected resources.

olrad A command line tool for performing OL* and managing slots and cards, See “olrad -

Command Line Interface” on page 75.

hotplugd A daemon that handles events that are generated by pressing the Attention Button

corresponding to a PCI I/O slot.