Artesyn MOTLoad Firmware Package User's Manual (February 2015) - Manual (Page 271)

Appendix E
MOTLoad Firmware Package User’s Manual (6806800C24D) 271
E
Safe Start and Alternate Boot Image
E.1 Overview
MOTLoad supports a safe-start mechanism that enables customers to recover from
inadvertent board configurations that may cause performance degradation, inoperable
functionality, or even firmware boot failures. Recent versions of MOTLoad incorporate
Alternate Boot Image support as part of Safe Start. The concept of Alternate Boot Image
support is to enable a product to retain a pristine copy of MOTLoad firmware in the primary
boot block while enabling customers to select an alternate boot image such as an updated
version of MOTLoad, a Power On Self Test (POST), or even a bootable kernel or other desired
firmware. The primary boot block is intended to contain factory-injected firmware and remain
unchanged. Hence, customers can resort to the pristine copy of firmware to recover from
software-induced failure conditions.
E.2 Safe Start
Safe Start is typically controllable through an on-board jumper or switch option. MOTLoad’s
behavior under Safe Start may vary slightly between products but generally entails the
following:
 With recent versions of MOTLoad, the MOTLoad boot loader invokes an interactive boot
menu that provides the capability to select an alternate boot image. If a user selects an
alternate MOTLoad image, the boot loader transfers control to the selected MOTLoad
image and the image continues in Safe Start. Note that the Safe-Start jumper or switch
option may not impact behavior of other types of boot images; for example, VxWorks.
 MOTLoad ignores all GEVs. For example, MOTLoad disables the autoboot mechanism,
defined test suites, configurable POST, SCSI, and ATA probing performance
enhancements, and other configurations that are dependent on GEVs.
 MOTLoad bypasses the use of VPD and SPD as configuration parameters.
Note: Without the use of VPD, MOTLoad does not provide Ethernet support for
embedded Ethernet controllers since MAC addresses of embedded Ethernet controllers
are resident in VPD storage.
 MOTLoad disables use of VME operations for VME-based products. MOTLoad leaves the
VME controller in an uninitialized state.