Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 07:35:57 -0700 (PDT) From: Stefan Molnar <stefan@csudsu.com> To: Doug White <dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu> Cc: Ronald G Minnich <rminnich@lanl.gov>, Jung-uk Kim <juikim@engin.umd.umich.edu>, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Anybody working on FreeBSD BIOS? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0006160720250.268-100000@clockwork.csudsu.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0006152300150.12294-100000@resnet.uoregon.edu>
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On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Doug White wrote: > On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Stefan Molnar wrote: > > > I have not built clusters over 200 nodes, but I almost never > > go into the BIOS for configurations. And the systems that > > I have used, include serial access within the BIOS. And > > adding PXE roms will make things nicer on the install front. > > But my current system is a single floppy, and that works > > well. > > As someone who has built one of these large systems, the best thing we > could want is OpenFirmware with a ROM monitor and Lights-Out Monitoring. > Basically make a PC act like a Sun Netra T1. :) I love the NetraT1, I am now using them at Major broadcasters and at DirecTV. But gettting the LOM functionality to x86 is a completly diffrent matter. Since it has to act independtly from the mainboard. I would much rather see the BIOS be converted to OpenBoot. Since that works greatly. > In real life, the only BIOS problems that require human intervention are > usually hardware related. You can't avoid the trip to the colo in this > case. I picked the remote hands service plan at my colo to be that human. When I see it is an issue to go that route. > The buildout cost is pretty spendy too, having to buy a Cisco 2511 or > similiar term server for every 24-odd boxen. For us, this would mean > buying 20 or so units and cabling up every box, which we don't have the > time to do. We just leave 9" mono VGA displays and keyboards in the cage > and call up the remote-hands when things die. We let them power cycle > things but if it's really hosed we drive over and frob the box ourselves. I went the 2611 route with 32port async module, but the overall time and effort does save in the long run. I am a firm beliver that serial console for servers, and remote systems is not an option. I is a must. It has saved alot of down time. I delgated the remote-hands to being my human on-off switch, or a "blinky light" monitor. > BTW the PXE loader stuff is invaluable for installs. Saves having to > track down a (usually broken) floppy to load a system up. A few > keypresses at boot and voila, new FreeBSD box. :) I will probably give a > talk at BSDCon about these issues, if I can get everything lined up. And I will be right there in the audiance. > > The best people to determin if it is nessesary is Yahoo and Hotmail. > > Since they have worked with these issues in the thousands of machines. > > Sigh, it's not easy being #6. Even with 16 million confirmed members > eGroups gets no respect :) Yeah, I normaly forget about them, I think eCircles uses FBSD as well. Stefan > Doug White | FreeBSD: The Power to Serve > dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu | www.FreeBSD.org > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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