SPARC M8 and SPARC M7 Series Servers : boot a Pdomain on the VTS bootable image for SPARC

Asset ID:	1-79-2130996.1
Update Date:	2017-10-11
Keywords:

Solution Type Predictive Self-Healing Sure

Solution 2130996.1 : SPARC M8 and SPARC M7 Series Servers : boot a Pdomain on the VTS bootable image for SPARC

Applies to:

SPARC M7-8 - Version All Versions and later
SPARC M7-16 - Version All Versions and later
SPARC M8-8 - Version All Versions and later
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Purpose

The M7 Servers do not have any internal disk. During the server installation, if the customer has not ordered any F160 Flash card or is not able to provide an external bootable storage device then it's possible to boot the physical domain on the VTS bootable image for SPARC in order to test the platform using VTS and to collect explorer.

The customer will later provide the definitive solution to boot the Pdomain.

Scope

The Oracle VTS 8.0.0 bootable image for SPARC is an ISO image built on Solaris 11.3 SRU 7 and includes Explorer 8.11.

The Oracle VTS 8.1.0 bootable image for SPARC is an ISO image built on Solaris 11.3 SRU 8 and includes Explorer 8.13.

When pre-installed Solaris is available from F160 Flash card, the Pdomain should be booted from there.

M7 Supercluster is out of scope as it's pre-installed and using eUSB disk for Versaboot.

This image is originally designed to be used to install M7 Pdomain when no boot device is available at installation time. So VTS can be run and explorer collected at installation time. The eUSB disks are not aimed to be used as a storage solution and if iSCSI over IPoIB is in use, this would impact the configuration.

Details

Obtain the image

Download the image from MOS, Patches & Updates, by selecting "VTS" as a product. Select the latest bootable image for SPARC.

Patch 22937671: Oracle vts 8.0.0 bootable image - Oracle Solaris on SPARC (64-bit)

Patch 23336702 : Oracle vts 8.1.0 bootable image - Oracle Solaris on SPARC (64-bit)

From the zip file available, extract the ISO file (Oracle_VTS8.x.0-Live-sparc.iso). Make the ISO file available locally or on NFS server.

Note : the patch ID is the same for the x86 and SPARC images so make sure to select the correct platform (ORACLE Solaris on SPARC (64bits)) and that the zipfile name is pxxxxxxxx_8x0_SOLARIS64.zip.

Share the ISO file using Storage Redirection

From the BUI :

Select the Pdomain
Remote Control
- Redirection
  - Use Serial Redirection / Launch Remote Console
  - Select the KVMS pull-down & then Storage
  - Click the Add button & in the popup select the ISO file
  - and click Connect

Select the Pdomain
Host Storage Device
Set the mode to "remote"
Set the Server URI using NFS to access the ISO file from NFS server.

From the CLI, by configuring

/Servers/PDomains/PDomain_x/SP/services/kvms servicestate=enabled
/Servers/PDomains/PDomain_x/SP/services/kvms/host_storage_device mode=remote
/Servers/PDomains/PDomain_x/SP/services/kvms/host_storage_device/remote/ server_URI=nfs://hostname:/directory/file.iso

Make sure that the storage status is "operational".

When booting on the ISO image, Solaris runs in ramdisk. Disconnecting the ISO file will make the Pdomain no longer accessible.

Select the boot device

Make sure that the host will stop at OBP.

set /HOST<x>/bootmode script="setenv auto-boot? false"

Start the host

start /HOSTx

If the host was already started before sharing the ISO file, make sure to initiate a 'reset-all'.

Select the rcdrom alias from OBP and boot from rcdrom

{0} ok boot rcdrom -v

Boot the host

During the boot sequence, answer the various questions.

{0} ok boot rcdrom -v
Boot device: /pci@304/pci@1/pci@0/pci@2/usb@0/storage@2/disk@0 File and args: -v
...
USB keyboard
1. Arabic 15. Korean
2. Belgian 16. Latin-American
3. Brazilian 17. Norwegian
4. Canadian-Bilingual 18. Portuguese
5. Canadian-French 19. Russian
6. Danish 20. Spanish
7. Dutch 21. Swedish
8. Dvorak 22. Swiss-French
9. Finnish 23. Swiss-German
10. French 24. Traditional-Chinese
11. German 25. TurkishQ
12. Italian 26. UK-English
13. Japanese-type6 27. US-English
14. Japanese
To select the keyboard layout, enter a number [default 27]:

1. Chinese - Simplified
2. Chinese - Traditional
3. English
4. French
5. German
6. Italian
7. Japanese
8. Korean
9. Portuguese - Brazil
10. Spanish
To select the language you wish to use, enter a number [default is 3]:
User selected: English
...

You can now log as :

jack / jack then
root / solaris

solaris console login: jack
Password: jack
solaris:~$jack@solaris:/var$ su -
Password: solaris
Feb 16 12:03:12 solaris su: 'su root' succeeded for jack on /dev/console
Oracle Corporation SunOS 5.11 11.3 December 2015

Start VTS

VTS will require an existing repository to store the logs. BEFORE starting VTS, we can create a ZFS pool/FS to store the logs. We will use a eUSB disk.

Important : Keep in mind that this procedure is dedicated to M7 Servers installations and no boot device is available. eUSB disks must not be used out of this context.

Pick up a eUSB disk and create a pool/FS from it.

root@solaris:~# zpool list
no pools available
root@solaris:~# format
Searching for disks...done

AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
...
9. c12t0d0 <MICRON-eUSB DISK-1112 cyl 246 alt 0 hd 255 sec 63>
/pci@327/pci@2/usb@0/storage@1/disk@0,0
/dev/chassis/SYS/CMIOU7/EUSB-DISK/disk
Specify disk (enter its number): ^D
root@solaris:~#

root@solaris:/var# zpool create VTS c12t0d0

root@solaris:/var# zpool list
NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROOT
VTS 1.88G 85K 1.87G 0% 1.00x ONLINE -

root@solaris:/var# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
VTS 85K 1.84G 31K /VTS

Create a symlink for the VTS logs so the logs will end up in the /VTS filesystem.

root@solaris:~# mkdir /VTS/sunvts

root@solaris:~# chmod 777 /VTS/sunvts

root@solaris:/var# ln -s /VTS/sunvts /var/sunvts

root@solaris:/# ls -la /var/sunvts
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 Feb 16 15:30 /var/sunvts -> /VTS/sunvts

Now you can start and configure VTS in TTY mode

root@solaris:~# /usr/sunvts/bin/startsunvts -t
Starting TTY UI....

test_mode should be : System Excerciser
for installation, "Duration of Testing" should be at least 240 minutes or 3/4 passes of tests
in test_groups, un-select "disks" and "network"

Start the tests

Stop VTS and check the logs

When VTS has run for 240 min or 3/4 passes, you can stop the tests. The resulting logs will be available from /var/sunvts.

root@solaris:/var/sunvts# ls -la
total 15
drwxrwxrwx 5 root root 5 Feb 16 15:57 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 3 Feb 16 15:33 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 2 Feb 16 15:35 debug
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 10 Feb 16 15:57 logs
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 2 Feb 16 15:57 session
root@solaris:/var/sunvts# ls -la logs
total 242
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 10 Feb 16 15:57 .
drwxrwxrwx 5 root root 5 Feb 16 15:57 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 2 Feb 16 15:56 networktest.kstat
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 60745 Feb 16 15:35 sunvts_profile.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6145 Feb 16 15:57 sunvts.event
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10614 Feb 16 15:57 sunvts.info
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 16685 Feb 16 15:34 sunvts.startup
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4904 Feb 16 15:56 vtsk_stderr.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11597 Feb 16 15:57 vtsk_stdout.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3102 Feb 16 15:34 vtsprobe

The logs should be checked to verify if any error was detected.

If network solution is available, the VTS logs may be exported later in this procedure.

If not, make sure that no error were reported.

Collect explorer

If network is available then there is a way to export an explorer. If there is no way to export the explorer output, there is no need to collect explorer.

Create a directory for explorer and configure explorer

root@solaris:/# mkdir /VTS/explorer
root@solaris:/# chmod 777 /VTS/explorer

root@solaris:/# explorer -g
-----

...

Absolute path of the Explorer defaults file?
[/etc/explorer/default/explorer]:
Absolute path of the Explorer output top location?
[/var/explorer/output]: /VTS/explorer

...

Feb 16 17:33:40 solaris[26943] explorer: Explorer defaults file updated.
Feb 16 17:33:40 solaris[26943] explorer: Run /usr/sbin/explorer with options to collect data.

Run explorer

root@solaris:/# explorer -w default,\!ipmi -timeout 900

The resulting explorer will be available in /VTS/explorer

Export VTS logs and explorer output

This step may not be possible if no network solution is available to export the logs.

When a network card is available in the host and connect to external network, it may be possible to manually create and configure a network interface and IP.

# dladm show-phys

# ipadm create-ip netx

# ipadm create-addr –T static –a local=x.x.x.x/24 netx/addr

# ipadm show-addr

Using the configured interface, export the explorer output (/VTS/explorer) and VTS logs (/VTS/sunvts).

Clean up activity

Destroy the ZFS pool previously created

root@solaris:~# zpool destroy VTS

root@solaris:~# zpool list
no pools available

At this point, the host can probably be stopped.

Stop sharing the ISO file from BUI or CLI.

Make sure to return the '/Servers/PDomains/PDomain_x/SP/services/kvms/host_storage_device mode' property value to "miniroot. In case, there is plan to use iSCSI over IPoIB.

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