SunVTS Bootable CD and USB Environment for Sun x86 Platforms

C H A P T E R 8

The bootable SunVTS CD and USB (TTY and BUI) is only supported on Oracle’s Sun x86 platforms, based on Intel and AMD processors. This release enables you to use the tool regardless of the native operating systems environment of the host machine, such as Windows or Linux. This chapter covers methods of using the bootable image, some of the limitations that you will encounter in this environment, and recommendations on how to use the bootable CD and USB. See Chapter 5 for information on using the TTY interface used for bootable CD and USB.

This chapter describes the operation of SunVTS through the bootable CD and USB media. Topics include:

Bootable CD and USB Environment Introduction

Using Bootable CD or USB Media to Start SunVTS

Using the Service Processor to Boot from the SunVTS Image (Booting from a Virtual Machine)

Limitations

Bootable CD and USB Environment Introduction

The bootable SunVTS CD contains an ISO image of the tool which you can use for booting, irrespective of the native environment on the machine under test. An ISO image is an image for an optical disk which has been created using the conventional ISO format. This format is based on the ISO 9660 file system, usually used with CD-ROM media. The format is supported on most platforms. It allows a platform-independent means to describe the contents of a CD.

The bootable SunVTS USB contains the UFS image of the tool, which you can use for booting, irrespective of the native environment on the machine under test. You need to reorder the boot device priority under BIOS so that you can boot from the USB media.

The SunVTS bootable CD and USB image contains the following:

Solaris operating system released with this tool. Solaris packages not needed by the tool have been removed.

SunVTS tool for system diagnostics (SUNWvts, SUNWvtsmn, SUNWvtsr, SUNWvtss, and SUNWvtsts)

HD tool (SUNWhd): Contains the hard disk drive utility for x86 systems which allows you to determine the logical to physical device mapping of the system. For more information on the hd utility, go to http://docs.sun.com and search for “hd utility.”

ssh and bash packages (SUNWsshu and SUNWbash)

Python packages (SUNWPython, SUNWPython-devel, SUNWPython-share, SUNWlxml-python, and SUNWlxsl-python)

IPMI tool package (SUNWipmi)

Using Bootable CD or USB Media to Start SunVTS

You must have a bootable CD either delivered as a part of your system or that you have created a bootable CD. The image can be downloaded from the Sun download center. To burn the ISO image on to the CD, you can use any CD burning device and software.

To Boot Using the CD Using TTY, BUI, or GUI

1. Insert the disk into the CD drive of the computer.

2. Power on the computer.

3. Set BIOS to boot from the CD.

In order to allow the CD-ROM to boot, you have to check that your BIOS is configured properly. In the boot order priorities, the CD drive must be shown before your hard disk.

4. Save the BIOS changes and then exit the BIOS settings.

The machine will boot from the CD and you should then see the SunVTS option to launch the user interface in terminal (TTY) mode or BUI mode.

5. Use the SunVTS TTY, BUI, or GUI interface for testing.

If using the TTY interface for testing, refer to Chapter 5 for information on using the TTY interface.

If using the BUI for testing, do the following:

a. Accept the certificate prompts.

b. At the lockhart login, enter user name root and password solaris.

c. After login, select the sunvts tab that is displayed.

d. Add the host.

Hostname is localhost and the password is solaris.

e. Start the test.

6. When testing is complete, use the SunVTS TTY or BUI interface to Quit.

You are then returned to the shell prompt.

To Boot Using the USB

1. Insert the USB media to USB port on a computer system, running Solaris x86.

2. Make a temporary directory and get the vtscopy and USB Boot image on this directory.

3. Run the vtscopy script.

# ./vtscopy USB-image-path

Follow the steps indicated by the vtscopy script. Once the image copy is completed, the script will exit to the prompt.

4. Power on the computer.

5. Set BIOS to boot off the USB Flash disk.

In order to allow the USB to boot, you have to check that your BIOS is configured properly. In the boot order priorities, the USB drive must be shown on top of the HDD list.

6. Save the BIOS changes and exit the BIOS settings.

The machine will boot from the USB, the TTY and BUI option is then displayed.

7. Use the SunVTS TTY or BUI interface for testing.

If using the TTY interface for testing, refer to Chapter 5 for information on using the TTY interface.

If using the BUI for testing, do the following:

a. Accept the certificate prompts.

b. At the lockhart login, enter user name root and password solaris.

c. After login, select the sunvts tab that is displayed.

d. Add the host.

Hostname is localhost and the password is solaris.

e. Start the test.

8. When testing is complete, use the SunVTS TTY or BUI interface to Quit.

Using the Service Processor to Boot from the SunVTS Image (Booting from a Virtual Machine)

You can use the bootable CD and USB image directly instead of using the physical CD. In Sun systems, the Service Processor (SP) can be used to boot from the bootable CD image. Declare the ISO image as the virtual CD-ROM drive. In the virtual BIOS, you must ask the computer to boot from the CD-ROM. This does not require the actual CD-ROM media for booting. For this method, the booting device can be on the network, in which case, you must specify the IP address.

In the directions below, the Service Processor (SP) on Sun systems is being used as the network device. You should know the SP IP address.

To Do the Boot Process

1. Point your browser to the SP IP address of the machine.

http://SP-IP address

2. Log in as root using your root password.

3. Accept the certificates prompts.

4. Click on Remote Control.

5. Click on Launch Redirection (8-bit).

6. Log in again as root using a root password for the SP.

7. Once connected appears in the left bottom, enable the keyboard and mouse in Devices at the top of the window.

8. On the redirected ILOM remote console, click Devices.

9. Click on the CD-ROM image (not the CD-ROM).

10. Attach the ISO image (that is, the file with the .iso extension) from your path.

11. Reboot the Host through the SP.

http://SP-IP address

a. Log in as root using your root password.

b. Select OK, Run, Accept Certificate, and so on, when prompted.

c. Select Remote Control.

d. Select Remote Power Control.

e. Select Reset.

12. Check the redirected ILOM remote console for shutdown and then reboot messages.

13. Go to the BIOS setup options.

On a Linux system, this is generally done by pressing the F2 key.

14. Use the arrow keys to navigate to Boot Priority.

15. In the Boot Priority menu, make the first boot device the CD media.

16. Save and exit BIOS setup.

On a Linux system, this is generally done by pressing the F10 key.

The boot-loader then looks for the OS binary on the CD-ROM. In SP, however, a virtual CD-ROM has been created by attaching the ISO image as the CD-ROM image. It therefore boots from your ISO image, it may be a bit slow when booting from the ISO image. In case that the redirection on the ILOM remote console expires the session, do a reconnect making sure that the keyboard, mouse, and CD-ROM image in the Devices menu are properly checked.

Limitations

The bootable CD and USB environment presents some challenges for testing of the hardware which are not present in the conventional environment where the tool is run from the disk. In the bootable CD environment, the memory in the system is used to run the image. Below are some limitations that you might encounter with the bootable CD or USB environment.

Infrastructure Limitations

The bootable image only supports the 64-bit environment, that is, the operating system is booted in 64-bit mode.

If you want to save the test logs for future reference, the log files need to be saved onto a disk or moved over the network to another location. Two possible setups:

- Mount the existing disk on the system and copy the files to the disk.

- Plumb the interface and ftp the files to a known system on the network.

Testing Limitations

Memory Test - The amount of physical memory that testing can cover is going to be limited due to the footprint of the bootable image. Additionally, when memory tests are run with other tests in the system, the tests will be allocating and using memory with some reserve amount. This enables all tests to run simultaneously without severe effect on performance.

Media Test - Since the system is booted off the CD, testing of that device is done with READ-only operations. Otherwise, the disk might get corrupted.

Boot USB Limitations

The Boot USB image takes a slightly longer time to display compared to the Boot CD image. The progress-bar dots may not be seen in the USB boot image.

To Obtain a Complete FMA Report

To obtain a complete report of all FMA-generated events, with all error messages, you should use the VTSreportgenerate utility. See Utilities.