D Utilities

This appendix describes the utilities that are part of the server. These include the EFI Boot Manager, and EFI-POSSE.

This appendix addresses the following topics:

•“Extensible Firmware Interface Boot Manager” (page 317)

•“EFI/POSSE Commands” (page 320)

•“Specifying SCSI Parameters” (page 337)

•“Using the Boot Option Maintenance Menu” (page 343)

•“iLO 2 MP” (page 348)

Extensible Firmware Interface Boot Manager

The Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) is an OS and platform-independent boot and preboot interface. EFI resides between the OS and platform firmware, enabling the OS to boot without details about the underlying hardware and firmware. EFI supports boot devices, uses a flat memory model, and hides platform and firmware details from the OS.

NOTE: EFI and Pre-OS System Environment (POSSE) are similar. EFI is an Intel specification, whereas POSSE is the HP implementation that aids HP support.

EFI consolidates boot utilities similar to those found in PA-RISC systems, such as the Boot Console Handler (BCH), and platform firmware into a single platform firmware. EFI enables the selection of any EFI OS loader from any boot medium that is supported by EFI boot services. An EFI OS loader supports multiple options on the user interface.

EFI supports booting from media that contain an EFI OS loader or an EFI-defined system partition. An EFI-defined system partition is required by EFI to boot from a block device.

Figure D-1 EFI Boot Sequence

 

 

EFI

 

EFI

 

EFI

 

OS Loader

 

 

Driver

 

Application

 

Bootcode

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Retry

EFI API

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Failure

Platform

EFI Image

 

EFI

Boot Services

OS Loader

Init

 

Load

Terminate

 

 

Load

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standard

Drivers and

Boot from

Operation

Firmware

Application

Ordered List

Handed Off to

Platform

Loaded

of EFI OS

OS Loader

Initialization

Iteratively

Loaders

 

 

 

Application Program

 

Value add implementation

 

 

Interface (API) specified

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boot manager

 

 

EFI transfers

 

 

 

 

 

 

The EFI Boot Manager loads EFI applications (including the OS first stage loader) and EFI drivers from an EFI-defined file system or image loading service. Non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) variables

Extensible Firmware Interface Boot Manager 317