Booting in LPAR mode from SCSI

6.10 LPAR mode

Use the SE or HMC to boot Linux® in LPAR from a SCSI boot device.

Before you begin

  • You need a boot device that is prepared with zipl. For more information about SCSI boot devices, see Table 1.
  • You must have the SCSI IPL feature (FC9904) installed.
  • As of z14, a SCSI boot device is an FC-attached disk. Support for an FC-attached CD-ROM or DVD drive as a boot device is available on IBM Z® hardware prior to z14.

About this task

The steps that follow describe how to boot by using the HMC GUI. As an alternative, you can use the HMC API, see Using the HMC Web Services API to boot in LPAR mode.

Procedure

Perform these steps to boot from a SCSI boot device:

  1. In the navigation pane of the HMC, expand Systems Management and select the hardware system that you want to work with. A table of LPARs is displayed on the Partitions tab in the content area.
  2. Select the LPAR where you want to boot Linux.
  3. In the Tasks area, expand Recovery and click Load (see Figure 1).
    Figure 1. Load task on the HMC
    Screen capture of the Hardware Management Console. In the Tasks area, expand the Recovery list and click Load.
  4. Proceed according to your hardware level to specify details about the load process.

    Follow these steps for IBM® z16™ with the updates of May 2023.

    1. Select device type SCSI as shown in Figure 2.
      Figure 2. Load panel for booting from a SCSI disk with device type selection
      Screen capture of the Load panel with device type SCSI selected.
    2. Select load type Load an OS.
    For earlier hardware levels, select load type SCSI load.
    Figure 3. Load panel for booting from a SCSI disk with device type selection
    Screen capture of the Load panel with device type SCSI selected.
    Note: Do not select Clear main memory before loading check box unless you must clear memory. Memory clearing can considerably prolong the IPL procedure.
  5. Optional: For boot images in the secure-boot format, select the Enable Secure Boot option. For more information about secure boot, see Secure boot.
  6. Enter the device number of the FCP channel through which the SCSI disk is accessed in the Load address field.
  7. Enter the WWPN of the SCSI disk in the World wide port name field.
  8. Enter the LUN of the SCSI disk in the Logical unit number field.
  9. If the boot configuration is part of a zipl created menu configuration, type the configuration number that identifies your SCSI boot configuration within the menu in the Boot program selector field.
    Configuration number 0 specifies the default configuration.
  10. Optional: Type kernel parameters in the Operating system specific load parameters field.
    These parameters are concatenated to the end of the existing kernel parameters that are used by your boot configuration when booting Linux. The combined parameter string must not exceed a length that is set when the kernel is compiled.

    Use ASCII characters only. If you enter characters other than ASCII characters, the boot process ignores the data in the Operating system specific load parameters field.

  11. Accept the defaults for the remaining fields.
  12. Click OK to start the boot process.

What to do next

Check the output on the preferred console to monitor the boot progress.

For information about IPL progress messages that are issued before the Linux kernel gets control, see Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) IPL Machine Loader Messages, SC28-7006.