snIPL experimental (2002-03-04) for "August 2001" and "May 2002
stream"
snIPL for STONITH (2003-07-25) for "June 2003 stream"
snIPL V.2.0 (2004-01-30) for "June 2003 stream"
snIPL V.2.1 (2004-11-02) for "June 2003 stream" and "April 2004 stream", as well as "October 2005 stream"
This version contains the following snIPL bug fix for snIPL V.2.1:
Description:
snIPL: for LPAR systems snIPL may not receive HMC/SE-responses.
Symptom:
snIPL command may stay in an infinite "processing" loop.
Problem:
snIPL makes use of an HMC/SE-provided API called hwmcaapi.
As default this API chooses randomly numbered ports for communication
between a snIPL-invoking Linux system and the HMC/SE.
Strict firewall rules may block these ports.
Solution:
Enable snIPL to make use of a specific hwmcaapi-initialize-option
that guarantees that tcp-port 3161 is used for communication between
a snIPL-invoking Linux system and the HMC/SE. This allows to define
specific tcp-port 3161 in the firewall.
Usage of this snIPL version requires usage of hwmcaapi-version greater
or equal to 2.9.1 from Resource Link
Problem-ID:
-
snIPL - simple network IPL (Linux Image Control for LPAR /
VM) is a command line tool which serves as remote linux image
control using basic S/390 or zSeries or System z9 Support Element (SE) functions
or basic z/VM system management functions with z/VM 4.4 (or higher)
on one or more images.
snIPL for LPAR utilizes the management application
programming interfaces (APIs) provided by the HMC/SE. To
communicate with the HMC/SE, snIPL establishes a network connection
and uses the SNMP protocol to send and retrieve data. The HMC/SE
has to be configured to allow the initiating host system to access
the API. If your network is firewall-controlled, udp-port 161 and
tcp-port 3161 have to be opened between snipl-invoking Linux system and HMC/SE.
In this mode snIPL can be used to boot Linux for S/390, zSeries, or Sytem z9
in LPAR mode, to send and retrieve operating system
messages, or to reset, activate or deactivate an LPAR for I/O
fencing purposes.
To compile and run snIPL for LPAR, it must
be linked to the management library hwmcaapi (which can be downloaded from
IBM Resource Link http://www.ibm.com/servers/resourcelink/).
For further details please refer to SB10-7030 (which can be downloaded from
http://www.ibm.com/support/).
snIPL for VM serves as remote control of basic z/VM
system management functions. It can be used to boot Linux guests
on z/VM, to reset, activate or deactivate an image for IO fencing
purposes. In this mode snIPL utilizes the System Management
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) of z/VM 4.4 (or higher).
To communicate with the z/VM host, snIPL for VM establishes a
network connection and uses the RPC protocol to send and retrieve
data. To compile and run snIPL for VM, the RPC protocol
specification DMSVSMA.X has to be copied to the Linux system
running snIPL (usually into /usr/share/dmsvsma/).
snIPL for STONITH (Linux Image Control - Virtual Power
Switch) is a plugin for the heartbeat-stonith "framework".
STONITH (Shoot The Other Node In The Head) provides an extensible
interface for remotely powering down a node in a cluster. The used
STONITH implementation is part of the Heartbeat framework of the
High Availability Project (http://linux-ha.org).
http://linux-ha.org/STONITH gives a general description of the
STONITH technique. The latest STONITH release can be downloaded
from http://linux-ha.org/download.
snIPL for Stonith supports the
remote image operations activate, deactivate, and reset, exploiting
basic S/390, zSeries, or Sytem z9 Hardware Management Console (HMC) and
Support Element (SE) functions for Linux running in an LPAR and of
basic z/VM 4.4 (or higher) System Management Functions for Linux running under
control of z/VM.
The actual implementation of STONITH may limit the
functionality of all Power Switches to reset.
Further requirement
(in addition to the snIPL command line tool):
To compile and make use of the STONITH plugin lic_vps, package
heartbeat has to be downloaded from http://linux-ha.org/download
and installed.
Please refer to the README and manpage of snIPL enclosed in the tarball
for further information and restrictions.
