User Guide

1
1
Introduction
Introduction
Overview
The Intel
®
Rapid Boot Toolkit (Release 1) is a collection of tools for the administrators and
programmers supporting High Performance Computing (HPC) clusters of Intel
®
server
boards. With this toolkit, you can boot the HPC nodes using the Intel
®
Rapid Boot BIOS,
and then launch a flash-based payload that supports your HPC provisioning needs. By using
the Intel Rapid Boot Toolkit, you can boot your entire HPC cluster faster and then provision
it in a fraction of the time required by the conventional BIOS and PXE provisioning method.
What’s in the Toolkit?
Intel Rapid Boot Toolkit includes the following components:
• Intel
®
Rapid Boot BIOS
• Sample Payloads
• Tools
o To create payloads (Payload Tool Chain)
o BIOS, BMC Update (Intel
®
One Boot Flash Update)
o BIOS, BMC Configuration (Intel
®
System Configuration Utility–SysCfg)
o Payload Update (pyFlash)
o Remote Power Management (Power Console)
o Job Distribution Mechanism (jQ)
What is the Payload Size in Flash?
The payload area in the BIOS flash area is 1.28 MB.
Intel
®
Server Boards S5000AL and S5000SL have a 4 MB BIOS flash chip, while Intel
®
Server Boards S3000AH and S3000PT have a 2 MB BIOS flash chip. In systems with the
4 MB BIOS flash area, the flash area is divided into two banks – Primary and Secondary.
This is to provide failover support if one bank becomes corrupted.
Out of the 2 MB BIOS flash area, 12 blocks (64K each) are used by the Intel Rapid Boot
BIOS while the remaining 20 blocks (totaling 1.28 MB) are available for a payload (a user
customizable embedded kernel). The Rapid Boot payload can support any Operating System
that is EFI aware and fits into the allotted space. It does not support legacy Operating
Systems.
Ref# D96629-001 Intel
®
Rapid Boot Toolkit User Guide 1