OpenSolaris

Flagday: x86 Fast Reboot

Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:41:32 -0700
From: Sherry Moore <sherry.moore at sun dot com>
To: onnv-gate at onnv dot eng dot sun dot com, on-all at eng dot sun dot com
Subject: Flagday: x86 Fast Reboot

The putback for

	PSARC 2008/382 Fast Reboot
	6714038 Fast Reboot support for x86 platforms

constitutes a flag day all ON developers and x86 (privileged) users.
You must use "nightly" to build and "bfu" to load the new archive.

For x86 users:

    A new "-f" flag has been introduced to the "reboot" command which
    allows a faster reboot that bypasses the BIOS and grub.

    Before trying out fast reboot on your system, please first run

	# reboot -f dryrun

    to see if all drivers have implemented quiesce(9E).  Please file
    bugs against drivers without a quiesce(9E) implementation.

    Example usage of the new option can be found in Example 3 of

	http://opensolaris.org/os/community/arc/caselog/2008/382/final-materials/reboot-man-txt/

    which will be reflected in the man page for reboot(1M).  If all
    drivers on the system have not implemented quiesce(9E), "reboot -f"
    will fall back to regular reboot.

    NOTE1: If "nvidia" is the only driver listed by "reboot -f dryrun"
    as without quiesce(9E) implementation, you can put
	set force_fastreboot = 1
    in /etc/system to safely force fast reboot.  The work for the
    nvidia driver is in progress (6750084 nvidia kernel driver should
    support quiesce), thanks to John.M.Martin at sun dot com.

    NOTE2: You must not fast reboot to a build from before the Fast
    Reboot integration, or the behavior is undefined.

For driver developers:

    A new driver entry point quiesce(9E) has been introduced.  A device
    driver must implement quiesce(9E) such that after the quiesce()
    operation, the device no longer accesses memory, initiates DMA, or
    generates interrupts.  Details of this entry point can be found at

	http://opensolaris.org/os/community/arc/caselog/2008/382/final-materials/quiesce-man-txt/

    which will be reflected in the man page for quiesce(9E).

The following man pages updates will happen in build 100.

    6745378 Need to update man page for reboot(1M)
    6745382 Need to update man page for uadmin(2)
    6745374 Need man page for quiesce(9E)
    6745377 Need to update man page for dev_ops(9S)

If you have questions, please send mail to fastboot-core at sun dot com.
Product/Catetory/Subcategory for filing bugs against x86 Fast Reboot:

    solaris/kernel/boot-x86 with keyword "Fastreboot"

Enjoy :)

fastboot-core at sun dot com
~--
Sherry Moore, Solaris Core Kernel	http://blogs.sun.com/sherrym