[syslinux] IPMI serial over lan disconnects seem to trigger extlinux reboots

[H. Peter Anvin]

On 11/14/2013 03:39 AM, Gene Cumm wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 5:20 PM, Andrew J. Schorr
> <aschorr at telemetry-investments.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 01:41:29PM -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>>> On 11/12/2013 01:22 PM, Andrew J. Schorr wrote:
>>>> I am using 4.05 because that's what's packaged in the latest Fedora
>>>> release (Fedora 19 in my case).  I wonder why they are using such an
>>>> old version.  I will take a look at how difficult it would be to build
>>>> the latest version on Fedora.
>>
>> FYI, it is not so easy to package for Fedora.  I see there is an open
>> bug to get this upgraded:
>>
>>    https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=869540
>>
>>> One possibility is that either the PXE stack or the BMC uses memory that
>>> it shouldn't.  Try setting a mem= option with less memory than you
>>> actually have and see if that changes things.
>>
>> That's an interesting idea.  I may give that a try.  Just to be clear,
>> are you talking here about the kernel "mem=" boot parameter, as documented
>> in kernel-parameters.txt?
> 
> Yes.  If the system has about 8192MiB RAM, I'd start by shaving it off
> in about 16MiB increments or perhaps take a binary search tree pattern
> approach.
> 

Actually, start by dropping it down to mem=2G, and move downward from there.

>> I wonder if that has negative implications for subsequent system performance...

It will, but it would be useful as a diagnostic tool.

	-hpa