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Setup Bios

Introduction

This code provides experimental support to change BIOS settings on SUT machines. The support is based on syscfg for most production systems.

As BIOS update can potential cause irreversible damage, you must explicitly enable the --sut_update_bios option and the --sut_reboot option for any BIOS related operations.

Probe BIOS Versions and Knobs

The BIOS knobs differ by different BIOS versions, which makes it difficult to provide universal BIOS setup. To probe the BIOS version on your SUT systems, do the following:

./ctest.sh -R <testcase> -V --options='--sut_update_bios --sut_reboot --sut_bios_probe'

After running the testcase, the current BIOS setup is saved under the test case logs directory under worker-0-bios/syscfg.ini, where you can obtain the BIOS version and the BIOS knobs.

cluster.bios

As a workload developer, you can configure your workload to mandate certain BIOS settings, such as setting HyperThreading to be Disabled.

Write such configurations in cluster-config.yaml.m4:

- labels: {}
  bios:
    SE5C620.86B:
      "Intel(R) Hyper-Threading Tech": Enabled          # Disabled
      "CPU Power and Performance Policy": Performance   # "Balanced Performance", "Balanced Power", or "Power"
    EGSDCRB1.86B:
      ProcessorHyperThreadingDisable: "ALL LPs"         # "Single LP"
      ProcessorEppProfile: Performance                  # "Balanced Performance", "Balanced Power", or "Power"
where SE5C620.86B and EGSDCRB1.86B are BIOS version substrings. If there are multiple matches, the longest match takes precedent (according to descendent string sort.)

The BIOS knobs such as Intel(R) Hyper-Threading Tech and their values Enabled must exactly match the BIOS definitions.

Global Options

You can overwrite any BIOS settings globally as follows:

./ctest.sh -R <testcase> -V --options="--sut_reboot --sut_update_bios --sut_bios_tool=syscfg --sut_bios_options=worker:ProcessorEppProfile=Performance"
where --sut_bios_options is a list of BIOS group:key=value string. Use , to separate the list items and %20 to escape any whitespaces.

See Also

  • syscfg: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/765094/server-configuration-utility-syscfg-for-intel-server-boards-and-intel-server-systems.html