HP e3000 PA-8700 A-Class and N-Class Core I/O Card
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Introduction
MPE/iX release 7.5 introduces support for the HP e3000 PA-8700 N-Class and A-Class hardware platforms. The Core I/O card is one of the hardware components of these platforms that has undergone significant improvement. There are changes to both the hardware and the I/O paths used to access the console and the functions of the Core I/O card. This article describes how these changes affect console commands and operations. The Core I/O card is a component installed in the systems and contains all the I/O components necessary to configure a bootable system (not including disks and tapes drives and terminals). The Guardian Service Processor (GSP) is an independent support processor built into the N-Class and A-class Core I/O. The GSP provides the functionality required for basic console operations to control the hardware before the OS is booted and provides the connectivity and major system manageability features for the system. You will see two significant changes to the Core I/O card for the PA-8700 platforms:
- The I/O paths used to configure the logical devices on the Core I/O card have changed.
- The GSP now incorporates a version of the Secure Web Console into the firmware.
Configuration of Console I/O Paths
The following data shows the details of the information that needs to be added to the IO configuration in Sysgen in order to configure the core I/O serial devices. The ldev 20 configuration is shown. The configurations of the remote session and UPS devices are the same except for the PATH and LDEV parameters. Additionally, the UPS port requires the class HPUPSDEV to be assigned. These entries are the same as the corresponding entries on the earlier N and A Class systems except the I/O path has changed.
io> lp 0/0/4/1
PATH: 0/0/4/1 LDEV:
ID: PCI_CONSOLE TYPE: DA
PMGR: PCI_CONSOLE_DAM PMGRPRI: 6
LMGR: MAXIOS: 0
io> lp 0/0/4/1.0
PATH: 0/0/4/1.0 LDEV: 20
ID: C1099A TYPE: TERM
PMGR: CDM_CONSOLE_DM PMGRPRI: 9
LMGR: TIO_TLDM MAXIOS: 0
io> ld 20
LDEV: 20 DEVNAME: OUTDEV: 20 MODE: JAID
ID: C1099A RSIZE: 40 DEVTYPE: TERM
PATH: 0/0/4/1.0 MPETYPE: 16 MPESUBTYPE: 0
CLASS: TERM
I/O Paths Used for the Console I/O Serial Ports
The serial ports on the PA-8700 Core I/O card are configured on the following I/O paths:
0/0/4/1.0 - console; Ldev 20
0/0/4/1.1 - remote session
0/0/4/1.2 - UPS device
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NOTE: These paths are NOT in the same order as the paths as designated on the equivalent platforms for the rp7400 HP-UX systems. This order of the hardware paths is due to the way the PCI_CONSOLE_DAM is mapping the paths used by Sysgen to the physical hardware. The paths were mapped this way to maintain the three ldevs on the Core I/O card in the same order they were configured on earlier non-PCI platforms. |
New Default Configuration Groups
MPE/iX release 7.5 includes four new default configuration groups that contain the configuration for the new PA-8700 Core I/O card. These groups define the I/O configuration for the console and the remote console port. The new groups are:
CONFNCL3 - For a N-Class system with 2 internal disks.
CONFNCL4 - For a N-Class system with an external disk.
CONFACL3 - For a A-Class system with 2 internal disks.
CONFACL4 - For a A-Class system with an external disk.
Secure Web Console
The GSP on PA-8700 Core I/O card contains the firmware that implements the Secure Web Console (SWC). The SWC can be used with either Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Internet browsers. Once the GSP LAN console access has been configured with the LC command, the SWC access can be enabled with the GSP EL command. When the EL command is entered, following the prompts allows you to enable console access via telnet, SWC or both. To access the SWC from your Web browser, simply enter the IP resolved node name for the GSP LAN port in the address bar of your browser. For example, if the node name GSP1.hp.com is the full domain name resolved by a DNS server to the IP address assigned to the GSP/LAN port, then enter 'http://gsp1.hp.com' in the address bar to access the SWC. For more documentation on the Secure Web Console, see the documentation for the rp7400 Server system hardware on the web at: http://www.docs.hp.com/.
The GSP LAN/Console Port
This port has been enhanced to provide a 10-100Base-TX connection into the GSP. Previously this GSP LAN/Console port only supported 10Base-TX connections.
Additional Helpful Console Information
The PA-8700 version of the GSP has added the EX command. This command allows you to exit and cause a close of your connection to the GSP. When this command is issued, and after confirmation, your session is disconnected and all other connections revert to the console mode. This is useful because in the past, if you disconnected from the console while in GSP mode, all other connections stayed in the GSP mode and console messages from the MPE/iX OS were not visible on the console terminal. There is the capability in the GSP to set two inactivity timers. The GSP Inactivity timer and Session Inactivity timer are configured with the IT command. The GSP Inactivity timer prevents a user from inadvertently leaving the GSP in the GSP Command Interface mode thus preventing console output from being sent to the console terminals. The GSP Command Interface inactivity timeout may not be deactivated. For MPE/iX it is a good idea to set this to a value of 2 minutes or shorter. The Session Inactivity timer prevents sessions to the system that were started with the SE command from being inadvertently left open. An open session can prevent users from logging onto the GSP through a port and can also prevent system applications from initiating an outbound connection.
Conclusion
Although the hardware is new, you will see minimal change in how you use and manage your system via the core I/O card. The addition of the Secure Web Console simplifies the management of the system via a WEB browser and eliminates the need for the stand-alone or I/O card version of the SWC. This has the added benefit of eliminating the need for an additional node name and IP address to configure the stand-alone or I/O card version of the SWC.
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SCSI Interface and Device Support for N-Class and A-Class HP e3000 |
SHUTDOWN - New CI Command |