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Status Planned for future release
Workspace Hardware Management Console
Created by Guest
Created on Jan 26, 2024

RELATED IDEAS

HMC should work as ntp server for eBMC ntp clients

As Pete Heyrman documented: The enterprise baseboard management controller (eBMC) was introduced in Power10 and provides similar system management functionality as the FSP. With respect to time, the eBMC time-of-day clock cannot be synced with the Time Reference Partition (TRP) time-of-day clock. It is recommended that the Network Time Protocol (NTP) be enabled using the same NTP server on both the TRP and the eBMC to keep the time-of-day clocks in the TRP, the hypervisor and the eBMC all in sync.


So TRP isn't working for Power10 Scale-out. But for best practices we uses two isolated vlans for communication between HMC and eBMC, no other device should use this vlan. Therefore it is not possible for the eBMC to reach a ntp server, the only partner in this vlan are the two HMCs. So it would be great if the HMC would work as ntp client to get a good time reference by open LAN and additionally HMC would work as ntp server to deliver time reference for BMC.

Idea priority High
  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Jun 25, 2024

    I agree whole-heartedly! Not being able to use the NTP feature on the eBMCs in traditional redundant-HMC environments is problematic. Once PHYP is up and running, PHYP's clock can be kept in sync using a Time Reference Partition (LPAR) as described at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/1126653 and https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/power10?topic=partitions-synchronizing-time-day-clocks . But when the system boots from a power-off state, PHYP gets it's initial time from the hardware clock on the eBMC. So if other LPARs boot before the Time Reference Partition boots, this leaves those other LPARs exposed to time drift on the hardware clock in the eBMC. Having one or both HMCs provide NTP service to the eBMC would resovle this.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Jan 29, 2024

    good idea

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