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+Last reviewed: 06/02/2009
+
+ HP iLO2 NMI Watchdog Driver
+ NMI sourcing for iLO2 based ProLiant Servers
+ Documentation and Driver by
+ Thomas Mingarelli <thomas.mingarelli@hp.com>
+
+ The HP iLO2 NMI Watchdog driver is a kernel module that provides basic
+ watchdog functionality and the added benefit of NMI sourcing. Both the
+ watchdog functionality and the NMI sourcing capability need to be enabled
+ by the user. Remember that the two modes are not dependent on one another.
+ A user can have the NMI sourcing without the watchdog timer and vice-versa.
+
+ Watchdog functionality is enabled like any other common watchdog driver. That
+ is, an application needs to be started that kicks off the watchdog timer. A
+ basic application exists in the Documentation/watchdog/src directory called
+ watchdog-test.c. Simply compile the C file and kick it off. If the system
+ gets into a bad state and hangs, the HP ProLiant iLO 2 timer register will
+ not be updated in a timely fashion and a hardware system reset (also known as
+ an Automatic Server Recovery (ASR)) event will occur.
+
+ The hpwdt driver also has four (4) module parameters. They are the following:
+
+ soft_margin - allows the user to set the watchdog timer value
+ allow_kdump - allows the user to save off a kernel dump image after an NMI
+ nowayout - basic watchdog parameter that does not allow the timer to
+ be restarted or an impending ASR to be escaped.
+ priority - determines whether or not the hpwdt driver is first on the
+ die_notify list to handle NMIs or last. The default value
+ for this module parameter is 0 or LAST. If the user wants to
+ enable NMI sourcing then reload the hpwdt driver with
+ priority=1 (and boot with nmi_watchdog=0).
+
+ NOTE: More information about watchdog drivers in general, including the ioctl
+ interface to /dev/watchdog can be found in
+ Documentation/watchdog/watchdog-api.txt and Documentation/IPMI.txt.
+
+ The priority parameter was introduced due to other kernel software that relied
+ on handling NMIs (like oprofile). Keeping hpwdt's priority at 0 (or LAST)
+ enables the users of NMIs for non critical events to be work as expected.
+
+ The NMI sourcing capability is disabled by default due to the inability to
+ distinguish between "NMI Watchdog Ticks" and "HW generated NMI events" in the
+ Linux kernel. What this means is that the hpwdt nmi handler code is called
+ each time the NMI signal fires off. This could amount to several thousands of
+ NMIs in a matter of seconds. If a user sees the Linux kernel's "dazed and
+ confused" message in the logs or if the system gets into a hung state, then
+ the hpwdt driver can be reloaded with the "priority" module parameter set
+ (priority=1).
+
+ 1. If the kernel has not been booted with nmi_watchdog turned off then
+ edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and place the nmi_watchdog=0 at the end of the
+ currently booting kernel line.
+ 2. reboot the sever
+ 3. Once the system comes up perform a rmmod hpwdt
+ 4. insmod /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/char/watchdog/hpwdt.ko priority=1
+
+ Now, the hpwdt can successfully receive and source the NMI and provide a log
+ message that details the reason for the NMI (as determined by the HP BIOS).
+
+ Below is a list of NMIs the HP BIOS understands along with the associated
+ code (reason):
+
+ No source found 00h
+
+ Uncorrectable Memory Error 01h
+
+ ASR NMI 1Bh
+
+ PCI Parity Error 20h
+
+ NMI Button Press 27h
+
+ SB_BUS_NMI 28h
+
+ ILO Doorbell NMI 29h
+
+ ILO IOP NMI 2Ah
+
+ ILO Watchdog NMI 2Bh
+
+ Proc Throt NMI 2Ch
+
+ Front Side Bus NMI 2Dh
+
+ PCI Express Error 2Fh
+
+ DMA controller NMI 30h
+
+ Hypertransport/CSI Error 31h
+
+
+
+ -- Tom Mingarelli
+ (thomas.mingarelli@hp.com)