Re: Netra T1 200 watchdog timeouts

[Richard Mortimer <richm@oldelvet.org.uk>]

On 19/09/2012 13:10, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote:
> Richard Mortimer wrote:
> > On 18/09/2012 18:49, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote:
> > > Richard Mortimer wrote:
... snip ...
> > > > > This affects both Lenny and Wheezy but does not affect Squeeze,
> > > > > i.e. it
> > > > > appears to be a regression. Since this happens in between the OBP boot
> > > > > command and SILO's boot prompt, I presume that it is a SILO problem or
> > > > > that the installer is doing something odd to the disklabel.
> > > > >
> > > > > Lenny:    1.4.13
> > > > > Squeeze: 1.4.14
> > > > > Wheezy:    1.4.14
> > > >
> > > > I don't see how the LOM firmware would affect this. OBP maybe but if
> > > > it is a processor watchdog then it I doubt its LOM. SILO would be my
> > > > first suspect.
> > >
> > > SILO is also my suspect (after a lot of fiddling trying to disable lom
> > > watchdog from OBP etc.) and those are SILO version numbers :-/
> > Brain wasn't turned on enough to realise that!
> >
> >  From memory I don't think the LOM watchdog is ever enabled in OBP on
> > the T1 200. It only ever gets enabled by the device drivers once
> > Solaris is running (if the packages you mention below are installed of
> > course).
>
> OK but at the same time the README from Solaris patch 110208-21
> explicitly says
>
> 5043823  Patch 110208-18 changes watchdog behavior and causes watchdog
> resets when probed
>
> and
>
> 4412177  lomlite2 watchdog is not always disabled on "reboot" - 110208-07
>
> both of which read as though there could be spurious watchdog events
> even without Solaris's intervention. However I note your point about the
> LOM log not showing anything.
I'm still pretty convinced that the problem you are seeing is nothing to 
do with LOM. I think that both of those are Solaris device driver issues 
too.

> Should I be raising this as a bug, or can I assume that the people who
> need to know about it are already aware of the issue?
Given that this affects Wheezy then a Debian bug is certainly in order.

I haven't had time to track the development of Wheezy closely but I 
think that it is pretty much using upstream SILO. I vaguely remember a 
few changes upstream recently for both ext2/4 support and for cpu 
detection. One of those could be causing your problem on the Wheezy build.

Given the nature of the problem I think it would be useful to have a 
good description of your installation in the bug. In particular 
filesystem layout (partition table), type (ext2/3/4) etc. may be 
relevant. A copy of the console session would be good to attach too.

Regards

Richard

P.S. I actually have a T1-200 too but I'm lacking in time to try it out 
here. Its going to be a few weeks before I can try.