| Sun Fire V890 Server Product Notes |     |
| Sun Fire V890 Server Product Notes | |
|
Sun Fire V890 Server Product Notes |
These Product Notes provide late-breaking information about issues related to the Sun Fire
V890 server.
The first published version of this document is 817-3996-11, August 2004.
This version is 817-3996-12, September 2004. The differences in this version of the document consist of the following:
Operating System versions 8 and 9
A complete set of online documentation supporting Sun Fire V890 servers is available at either of these two sites:
To find the information on docs.sun.com, click on the following links at the docs.sun.com site:
Frequently Requested Information 
All Solaris Versions Hardware Servers
Check these sites periodically for the latest revisions of Sun Fire V890 product documentation, including the latest version of these Product Notes.
Your Sun Fire V890 server comes preinstalled with the Solaris Operating System and Java Enterprise System software (formerly known as Sun ONE software). For important information about how to get started with the preinstalled software, go to:
http://www.sun.com/software/preinstall
The following table lists the minimum Solaris Operating System and OpenBoot PROM firmware requirements for Sun Fire V890 servers.
* Or a compatible version that supports the system
To verify that the proper version of the operating system is installed on the Sun Fire V890 server, examine the /etc/release file. This file should contain the text "Solaris X X/XX" or identify a Solaris release that is compatible with the Sun Fire V890 system.
To determine the current OpenBoot firmware version on a server, use one of the following methods:
While the Solaris Operating System is running, type the following command:
From the ok prompt, type the following command:
For more information about obtaining and installing OpenBoot firmware, see Required and Recommended Software Patches.
OpenBoot PROM Version 4.15 provides enhanced diagnostics that are enabled by default. Full OpenBoot Diagnostics run at power-on. For more information about these enhancements, the new and redefined configuration variables, and the new standard (default) configuration, refer to OpenBoot PROM Enhancements for Diagnostic Operation, which is available on the Sun Fire V890 Documentation CD included with the Sun Fire V890 server.
These diagnostics change the behavior of some applications that detect and report information about the server. For example, enhanced diagnostics change some reporting and console functionality in Sun Remote System Control (RSC) software. Refer to Software Issues for more information about these changes.
In addition, the diagnostics change the behavior of the server LEDs during startup. While power-on self-test (POST) is executing, the Power and System Fault LEDs blink simultaneously. After POST has completed and OpenBoot Diagnostics run, the LEDs return to normal function.
The CPU/Memory board part number for the Sun Fire V890 server is as follows:
This section lists software patches for the Sun Fire V890 server. You can obtain these patches from your authorized Sun service provider or by downloading them from the SunSolve OnlineSM web site at:
The patches described in these Product Notes are listed by the Solaris Operating System version you might have installed on your server. For patch installation instructions, see the README file that accompanies each patch.
The following table lists the required patches that are specific to the Sun Fire V890 server with the Solaris 9 4/04 Operating System installed. These patches are available as of the publication date of these Product Notes.
* Patches 111847, 113039, 113040, 113041, 113042, 113043 and 113044 require the package SUNWsan (SAN Foundation Kit). If you are using the preinstalled version of Solaris 9 that comes with your server, the SAN Foundation Kit and these patches are also preinstalled.
The SUNWsan package is available via the Sun Download Center at:
http://www.sun.com/storage/san/
From that site, download the latest SAN release software/firmware upgrade.
The following table lists the recommended patches specific to the Sun Fire V890 server with the Solaris 9 4/04 Operating System installed. These patches are available as of the publication date of these Product Notes.
The following table lists the required patches that are specific to the Sun Fire V890 server with the Solaris 8 02/04 Operating System installed. These patches are available as of the publication date of these Product Notes.
* Patches 111095, 111096, 111097, 111412, 111413, and 111846 require the package SUNWsan (SAN Foundation Kit). The SUNWsan package is available from the Sun Download Center at:
http://www.sun.com/storage/san/
From that site, download the latest SAN release software/firmware upgrade.
The following table lists the recommended patches specific to the Sun Fire V890 server with the Solaris 8 02/04 Operating System installed. These patches are available as of the publication date of these Product Notes.
The following sections describe various hardware and firmware issues associated with the Sun Fire V890 server product.
For a PCI card to be successfully detached from a running operating system, each device on the card must have a detach-safe driver. A detach-safe driver enables a single instance of a driver to be closed while other instances are allowed to remain open to service similar devices used elsewhere in the server. To be considered detach-safe, a driver must be able to perform a basic Device Driver Interface/Device Kernel Interface (DDI/DKI) function called DDI_DETACH. Any driver that does not support the DDI_DETACH function is considered detach-unsafe.
Sun Microsystems offers a variety of hot-pluggable PCI cards that use detach-safe device drivers. For more information about the available PCI cards, contact your Sun representative.
Many third-party drivers (those purchased from vendors other than Sun Microsystems) do not support the DDI_DETACH function. Verify any third-party PCI card functionality and hot-plug compatibility with the vendor of the third-party card before using the card in a production environment.
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Note - Always wait for a PCI hot-plug operation to complete before initiating a new operation. |
For more information about Sun Fire V890 PCI hot-plug operations, refer to the Sun Fire V890 Server Dynamic Reconfiguration Guide (817-4166-10), which is available at the following web site under Solaris on Sun Hardware:
To maintain robust server operation, it is extremely important to ensure that any PCI cards and associated drivers installed in a Sun Fire V890 server are qualified by Sun for use on the platform. It is possible for interactions to occur between cards and drivers on a specific bus that can lead to potential server panics or other negative outcomes if the card and driver solution is not qualified.
For an updated list of qualified PCI cards and configurations for the Sun Fire V890 server, contact your Sun authorized sales representative or service provider. For additional information, refer to this web site:
All FC-AL disk drives installed in a Sun Fire V890 server must meet the minimum firmware revision levels for Sun Fire V890 servers. Incorrect firmware can cause a variety of server problems that are often difficult to diagnose. To determine a disk drive's firmware revision level, use the inquiry feature of the Solaris format(1M) utility. The following table lists the minimum firmware revision levels for Sun Fire V890 disk drives as of the publication date of these Product Notes.
Minimum Firmware Revision Levels
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Note - Drive capacities lower than 72 Gbytes are not supported on the Sun Fire V890 server. |
For the most current list of Sun Fire V890 supported disk drives, see the latest revision of these Product Notes at the following web site:
http://www.sun.com/documentation
In the unlikely event that the firmware on a Sun Fire V890 FC-AL backplane becomes corrupted, you can use a backup image to flash update the backplane with its original firmware. The flash update procedure is performed with the Solaris luxadm utility and is described below.
Before you can flash update the backplane firmware, you need to download the firmware image from the SunSolve Online web site to the Sun Fire V890 system disk. The latest version of the backplane firmware is always available on the SunSolve Online web site at http://sunsolve.sun.com. The patch that contains the backplane firmware is patch ID 117814-01 (or later). To install the firmware from the SunSolve web site, see the instructions in the README file provided with the firmware image.
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Note - A version of FC-AL backplane firmware for the Sun Fire V880 is included on the Solaris Supplement CD. Do not install this version of the firmware on the Sun Fire V890. |
To install the firmware, use the following procedure.
1. Become superuser and reboot your system into single-user mode.
2. Turn the front panel keyswitch to the Unlocked position.
You need to move the keyswitch to the Unlocked position before you can program the server Flash PROMs.
3. Type the following luxadm subcommand to begin the flash update process:
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Note - For more information about the luxadm utility, see Platform Notes: Using luxadm Software, which is part of the Solaris on Sun Hardware Collection on the Supplement CD. |
4. When the superuser prompt reappears, wait at least 15 more minutes for the flash process to complete.
This minimum wait time is required for the flash update process to propagate the firmware code to all SSC-100 controllers in the server.
5. To verify that the flash update process has successfully completed, type the following luxadm subcommand:
Where enclosure_name is the enclosure name assigned to the Sun Fire V890 internal storage array.
The command output shows the status of each SSC-100 controller in the server. The following is an excerpt of sample output for a dual-backplane server.
SSC100's - 0=Base Bkpln, 1=Base LoopB, 2=Exp Bkpln, 3=Exp LoopB SSC100 #0: O.K.(922A/ 8D3C) SSC100 #1: O.K.(922A/ 8D3C) SSC100 #2: O.K.(922A/ 8D3C) SSC100 #3: O.K.(922A/ 8D3C) |
a. Verify that each SSC-100 controller displays an O.K. status and that each displays the same firmware version in parentheses.
If so, the flash update process has successfully completed.
b. Otherwise, wait another two minutes or so and repeat this step.
6. Once the flash update process is complete, restore the server to multiuser mode using the exit command.
7. Turn the front panel keyswitch back to the Locked position.
The Locked position is the recommended setting for normal day-to-day operations.
The server can now resume normal operation.
To detect and respond to system hang conditions, the Sun Fire V890 system features a hardware watchdog mechanism--a hardware timer that is continually reset as long as the operating system is running. In the event of a system hang, the operating system is no longer able to reset the timer. The timer will then expire and cause an automatic externally initiated reset (XIR), eliminating the need for operator intervention. When the watchdog mechanism issues the XIR, debug information is dumped to the system console.
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Note - The hardware watchdog mechanism is not activated until you enable it, as described in the procedure that follows. |
The XIR feature is also available for you to invoke manually, using your RSC console. You use the xir command manually when the system is absolutely hung and an L1-A (Stop-A) keyboard command does not work. When you issue the xir command manually by way of RSC, the system is immediately returned to the OpenBoot PROM ok prompt. From there, you can use OpenBoot PROM commands to debug the system.
You can set the OpenBoot configuration variables post-trigger and obdiag trigger to run POST or OpenBoot Diagnostics whenever the hardware watchdog mechanism resets. For more information about using the OpenBoot configuration variables with the hardware watchdog mechanism, refer to the Sun Fire V890 Diagnostics and Troubleshooting Guide (available at http://docs.sun.com under Sun on Sun Hardware).
To enable the hardware watchdog mechanism:
1. Edit the /etc/system file to include the following entry.
2. Reboot the system so the changes can take effect.
To have the hardware watchdog mechanism automatically reboot the system in case of system hangs:
At the system ok prompt, type the following.
To generate automated crash dumps in case of system hangs:
At the system ok prompt, type the following.
Currently, the only supported Sun racks for the Sun Fire V890 server are the Sun StorEdge Expansion Cabinet (Sun part number SG-XARY030A), the Sun Fire Cabinet (Sun part number SF-XCAB), and the Sun Rack 900 (Sun part number SR9-KL038A-IP).
To rackmount a Sun Fire V890 server in the Sun Rack 900, use the Sun X9638A rackmounting kit.
To rackmount a Sun Fire V890 server in the Sun StorEdge Expansion Cabinet and the Sun Fire Cabinet, use the Sun X9628A rackmounting kit.
An optional door (Sun part number X9818A) is available for the Sun StorEdge Expansion Cabinet. This door is required for EMI purposes if you are rackmounting two Sun Fire V890 servers in this rack.
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Note - You can install only one Sun Fire V890 server into the Sun Fire Expansion Cabinet. |
The four lifting handles included in the rackmounting kit are not designed to support the weight of a fully populated server.
The following sections describe various software issues associated with the Sun Fire V890 server product.
The Sun Fire V890 server comes with the system controller (SC) card installed. The following list summarizes how the RSC 2.2.2 software and the system controller hardware work together.
For more information about using RSC 2.2.2 software with SC hardware, refer to the Sun Fire V890 Server Owner's Guide.
OpenBoot PROM Version 4.15 comes with enhanced diagnostics that are enabled by default. Full OpenBoot Diagnostics run at power-on. For more information about these enhancements, the new and redefined configuration variables, and the new standard (default) configuration, refer to OpenBoot PROM Enhancements for Diagnostic Operation, which is available on the Sun Fire V890 Documentation CD included with the Sun Fire V890 server.
For instance, when the OpenBoot PROM enhanced diagnostics are enabled, the
rsc-console connection diagnostic output gets sent to the server console without issuing a warning message. When this occurs, the RSC console may appear not to respond to RSC commands. This behavior can also happen when you are viewing rsc-console output while the front panel keyswitch of the Sun Fire V890 server is set to the Diagnostics position.
Sun Management Center software, Version 3.5 Product Update 1, supports the Sun Fire V890 server. For more information about the Sun Management Center software, refer to the Sun Management Center 3.5 Supplement for VSP High-End Entry Servers (Workgroup Servers).
Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager software automates multipath I/O failover, fail-back, and SAN-wide load balancing on multiple platforms. It also allows you to perform dynamic database configuration. This software can help provide improved I/O performance, increased availability, and time-saving manageability on your mission-critical SAN.
To learn more about Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager software, to take an interactive tour of its features, and to price and purchase the product for your installation,
go to:
http://www.sun.com/storage/software/storage_mgmt/traffic_manager/index.xml
The Sun Fire V890 server uses OpenBoot PROM Version 4.15 system firmware. Instructions for using the firmware are provided in the OpenBoot 4.x Command Reference Manual, which is available at the following web site under Solaris on Sun Hardware:
The Sun Management Center 3.5 Supplement for VSP High-End Entry Servers (Workgroup Servers) does not specify Sun Fire V890 support. However, this version of the software does support the Sun Fire V890 server.
This section describes bugs and anomalies associated with the Sun Fire V890 server. In many cases, software patches that provide fixes for these bugs are available. Visit the SunSolve Online web site, or contact your Sun authorized service provider for information about patch availability. For more information, see Required and Recommended Software Patches.
When the OpenBoot PROM enhanced diagnostics are enabled, the rsc-console connection gets sent to the server console without warning. When this occurs, the RSC console may appear not to respond to RSC commands. This behavior can also happen when you are using RSC while the front panel keyswitch of the Sun Fire V890 server is set to the Diagnostics position.
If you run SunVTS software and RSC software simultaneously, you may see disk errors reported when you use the loghistory command that do not appear in SunVTS tests. This occurs because SunVTS cannot suspend RSC monitoring while tests are running. RSC reports each state change as a disk error. These messages do not appear when SunVTS is not running tests.
If you run the sync-TTCP Test Suite software while the server is experiencing heavy network loads, the Gigabit Ethernet (GEM) interface may drop connections. If this happens, perform the following procedure:
1. Use a text editor to open the /etc/system file.
2. Add the following lines to the file:
3. Save the file and close it.
Using the asr command asr-disable pci-slotn (where n is 0-8) to disable a PCI slot with a card present in that slot is not recommended. If there is a failing card in a PCI slot, you should instead remove the card from the system.
If you do use the asr-disable pci-slotn command to disable a slot with a card present (whether or not the card is failing), the interpreter will pause, waiting for a response from the card. Since the card will not respond due to the fact it was disabled, the boot sequence will be delayed by several minutes.
When using the Solaris 8 cfgadm command to perform PCI hot-plug operations on a Sun Fire V890 server, you may see the following warnings:
WARNING: mod_load: cannot load module `sbd'
WARNING: cannot load sbd
These warnings have no impact on PCI hot-plug operations and can be safely ignored.
| Sun Fire V890 Server Product Notes | 817-3996-12 | |
Copyright © 2004, Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
