I’ve spent the past day working on my newest Poweredge R620 acquisition, and trying to nail down what things I can do without checking. Google has shown me that everyone seems to be having similar issues regardless of brand or model. Gone are the days when a rack server could be fully booted in 90 seconds. A big part of my frustration has been when the USB memory sticks are inserted to get firmware updated before I put this machine in production, easily driving times up to 15-20 minutes just to get to the point where I find out if I have the right combination of BIOS/EUFI boot parameters for each individual drive image.
I currently have this machine down to 6:15 before it starts booting the OS, and a good deal of that time is spent sitting here watching it at the beginning, where it says it’s testing memory but in fact hasn’t actually started that process yet. It’s a mystery what exactly it’s even doing.
At this point I’ve turned off the lifecycle controller scanning for new hardware, no boot processes on the internal SATA or PCI ports, or from the NICs, memory testing disabled… and I’ve run out of leads. I don’t really see anything else available to turn off sensors and such. I mean it’s going to be a fixed server running a bunch of VMs so there’s no need for additional cards although some day I may increase the RAM, so I don’t really need it to scan for future changes at every boot.
Anyway, this all got me thinking… it might be fun to compare notes and see what others have done to improve their boot times, especially if you’re also balancing your power usage (since I’ve read that allowing full CPU power during POST can have a small effect on the time). I’m sure different brands will have different specific techniques, but maybe there’s some common areas we can all take advantage of? And sure, ideally our machines would never need to reboot, but many people run machines at home only while being used and deal with this issue daily, or want to get back online as quickly as possible after a power outage, so anything helps…
On Linux kexec is reboot without rebooting
Ohhhh… I remember reading years ago about a tool in development to perform in-place kernel reloads, but I never heard of it being completed. Thanks for the info, I’ll be digging into this!
that most likely is kpatch. kexec is a bit different but not really
Thanks for that, because I just realized kexec doesn’t work with systemd. More rabbit-holes to go down!
i think it does with the latest version
Second this. If you don’t need to go into the UEFI or do a full hardware reboot, and you’re running Linux, kexec will be much better for you.
6 min seems about right for an enterprise server, the more you have like a raid card initialization the longer it will be. Since there devices are designed to be run for months or years without rebooting it really doesn’t matter that the reboot takes as long as it does.
Sorry but not really.
My workplace is an HPE shop and our DL3XX Gen8 and above can boot in about <4-3min to the OS part.
Your only reason answer is don’t buy a “server” motherboard. They inherently perform more tasks during post to ensure stability. If you want fast post times get a desktop and a pikvm
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters HA Home Assistant automation software ~ High Availability NAS Network-Attached Storage RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage SSD Solid State Drive mass storage
5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 6 acronyms.
[Thread #124 for this sub, first seen 10th Sep 2023, 04:35] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Reflash to Coreboot. Failing that, disable SecureBoot, disable splash screen, disable PXE boot, disable all other boot order options that might try and fail before hitting the OS drive, remove any RAID cards or network cards you're not using. Remove any drives you're not using.
I make all my requests early in the morning: 0800 < 1400 - instant time reduction there!
Wrong type of POST.
Oh am sorry I don’t build fences
Microsoft says gtfo with your bios settings, they know what’s best, and that means all the checks you say you don’t want. I am guessing that’s your OS vendor…
Oh god no, I haven’t had a Windows machine since 2006. Everything in this house, even my wife’s laptop, runs linux.
