RELEASE NOTES FOR Intel System Information Retrieval Utility (SysInfo)

Version 12.0 Build 11
Nov 4, 2013

Copyright (c) 2013 Intel Corporation.

===========================================

Contents
--------

1. Introduction
2. Supported Intel(R) Platforms
3. Supported Operating Systems
4. Pre-requisites
5. Installation and Un-installation
6. Usage
7. Known Issues
8. Supported Features in the release
9. Legal Information.

1. Introduction
---------------

The System Information Retrieval Utility (SysInfo) is used for collecting the system information.
This utility dumps the following information to log files:

    1. Platform Firmware Inventory

    2. Sensor information

    3. Sensor Data Records
    
    4. BMC SEL (IN HUMAN READABLE FORM)

    5. BMC SEL (IN HEX FORM)
    
    6. Base Board FRU
    
    7. System BMC Boot Order

    8. BMC User Settings
    
    9. BMC LAN Channel Settings

    10. BMC SOL Channel Settings

    11. BMC Power Restore Policy Settings

    12. BMC channel settings

    13. SMBIOS Type 1, Type 2, Type 3
    
    14. Processor

    15. Memory

    16. Operating System Information

    17. IDESCSI

    18. HARD Drive

    20. Device Manager Information (a.k.a drivers)

    21. List Of Software Installed

    22. BIOS Settings (per BIOS SETUP F2 Screen).

    23. RAID settings and RAID log

    24. Operating System Event Log

    25.	SATA

    26. PCI Bus Device Information
    

2. Supported Platforms
----------------------
Intel(R) Server Board S1200RP series.
Intel(R) Server Board S1200 series.
Intel(R) Server Board S1400 series.
Intel(R) Server Board S1600 series.
Intel(R) Server Board S2400 series.
Intel(R) Server Board S2600 series.
Intel(R) Server Board S4600 series.


3. Supported Operating Systems
------------------------------
  UEFI 2.0/2.1/2.3.1
  Windows* Server 2008 R2 SP1 EM64T
  Windows* Server 2012 Enterprise
  Windows Server 2012 R2 EM64T  
  Windows 7 (32 bit & EM64T)
  Windows 8 (32 bit & EM64T)
  WinPE* 3.x/4.x (32 bit & EM64T)
  RHEL6* update1/update2/update3/update4 (32 bit & EM64T)  
  CentOS* 6.x (32 bit & EM64T)
  SLES* 11 SP1/SP2 (32 bit & EM64T)


4. Pre-requisites
-----------------

 Download the latest platform S/W stack (BIOS/FW/FRUSDR package) for the platform and install it. Ensure system
 is running with the latest platform S/W stack. For the latest platform S/W stack, refer the link http://support.intel.com

Windows
-------

    1. Boot to windows 2003 R2 SP2 or windows 2008 (32 bit or EM64T) with WMI enabled.

    2. An external RAID driver needs to be loaded for RAID log generation in Windows. This driver can be downloaded from http://www.intelraid.com/. This download 
      supports Intel RAID Controllers using SAS software stack. Steps to download the driver from http://www.intelraid.com/
	a. Under Support, go to Download Center
	b. Select a product family: Server Products
	c. Select a product line: Intel (R) RAID Controllers
	d. Select a product name: Intel (R) RAID Controller. Eg. RS25DB080
	e. Download 'SAS Hardware RAID Driver'.
	f. Follow Install Instructions as per ReadMe document.

    3. The system needs to be rebooted after installing memrw driver (run "memrwdinstall.bat") on Windows 2012.
    
    4. For WinPE 3.0/4.0, 
	a. WinPE bootable CD is expected to have RAID drivers installed for RAID logging.

Linux
-----

    1. System is booted and running with any of the supported operating systems.

    2. In order to successfully install sysinfo into system, please make sure your Linux installation with all the dev packages or a customized one. 
       As like are some libraries(ncurses-libs-xx, libstdc++ etc) are pre-requested for sysinfo successful installation.

    3. An external RAID driver needs to be loaded for RAID log generation in Linux. This driver can be downloaded from http://www.intelraid.com/. This download  
       supports Intel RAID Controllers using SAS software stack. Steps to download the driver from http://www.intelraid.com/
	a. Under Support, go to Download Center
	b. Select a product family: Server Products
	c. Select a product line: Intel (R) RAID Controllers
	d. Select a product name: Intel (R) RAID Controller. Eg. RS25DB080
	e. Download 'SAS Hardware RAID Driver'.
	f. Install DKMS support under Linux console
	      # rpm -ivh dkms-2.0.22.0-1.noarch.rpm
	g. Install RAID driver using DKMS driver installation package
	      # rpm -ivh ir3_sas-v00.00.06.12-1.noarch.rpm
    
    4. On RHEL* 6 update4 OS
       If the utility fails with error message "Error: Unknown Error" in "BMC SEL" section of "sysinfo_log.txt"
       Then start up OpenIPMI driver using the below command. (It will make sure "/dev/ipmi0" device is existed)
	#modprobe ipmi_devintf
			
5. Installation and Un-installation
-----------------------------------
     Installation
     ------------

     UEFI
     ----

     1. Copy the un-compressed ZIP file into your local directory (e.g. fs0:\sysinfo)

     2. Go to UEFI folder

     3. Run sysinfo.efi

     4. Here the sysinfo binary is available. sysinfo.efi logs system information in 3 different log files

            a. sysinfo_log.txt 

               ( Platform Firmware Inventory, Sensor Information, Sensor Data Records, BMC SEL (IN HUMAN READABLE FORM), 

               BMC SEL (IN HEX FORM),  Base Board FRU, System BMC Boot Order, BMC User Settings, 

               BMC LAN Channel Settings, BMC SOL Channel Settings,  BMC Power Restore Policy Settings,

               BMC channel settings, SMBIOS Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Processor,Memory,  Operating System Information,

               BIOS settings per F2 screen).                             

            b. RAID_NVRAMlog.txt (RAID settings and RAID log)

            c. PCI_Log.txt (PCI Bus info).

     Windows
     -------

     1. Copy the compressed ZIP file into your local directory (e.g. C:\sysinfo)

     2. Unzip into the folder. (release notes is available in this folder)

     3. Go to "windows" folder. 

     4. Install driver. 
        For 32 bit Windows, go to folder "Drivers\x86" and run "install.bat" as administrator to install ipmi, smi and memory map drivers. 
        In order to dump SATA_log.txt and PCI_log.txt, you have to install memrw dirver by running "memrwdinstall.bat" as administrator in the same folder.
        For 64 bit Windows and WinPE, go to folder "Drivers\EM64T" and run "install.bat" as administrator to install ipmi, smi and memory map drivers. 
        In order to dump SATA_log.txt and PCI_log.txt, you have to install memrw dirver by running "memrwdinstall.bat" as administrator in the same folder.

     5. Go to "Binaries\" folder

     6. Run sysinfo.exe
        For 32&64 bit Windows, go to folder "x86\" and run "sysinfo.exe" as administrator.
        Only for 64 bit WinPE, go to folder "EM64T\" and run "sysinfo.exe".

     7. sysinfo.exe logs system information in 5 different log files

	a. sysinfo_log.txt 

	    ( Platform Firmware Inventory, Sensors, Sensor Data Records, BMC SEL (IN HUMAN READABLE FORM), 

	    BMC SEL (IN HEX FORM),  Base Board FRU, System BMC Boot Order, BMC User Settings, 

                  BMC LAN Channel Settings, BMC SOL Channel Settings,  BMC Power Restore Policy Settings,

                  BMC channel settings, SMBIOS Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Memory, Processor, IDESCSI,

                  HARD Drive, Operating System Information, Device Manager Information (a.k.a drivers),

                  List Of Software Installed, BIOS Settings (per BIOS SETUP F2 Screen)).                              

	b. RAID_NVRAMlog.txt (RAID settings and RAID log)

	c. OS_Eventlog.txt (Operating System Event Log)

	d. SATA_log.txt (SATA information)

	e. PCI_log.txt (PCI Bus information). 

     Linux
     -----

     1. Copy the ZIP file into your local directory (e.g. /root/sysinfo/) on your Linux m/c.

     2. unzip using the standard Linux 'unzip' command

     3. Go to Linux folder

     4. Run 'source install.sh' command on the shell prompt, to install the sysinfo components.

     5. Now run './sysinfo' on the shell promot, sysinfo logs

        system information in 4 different log files

            a. sysinfo_log.txt 

                ( Platform Firmware Inventory, Sensor information, Sensor Data Records, BMC SEL (IN HUMAN READABLE FORM), 

                BMC SEL (IN HEX FORM),  Base Board FRU, System BMC Boot Order, BMC User Settings, 

                BMC LAN Channel Settings, BMC SOL Channel Settings,  BMC Power Restore Policy Settings,

                BMC channel settings, SMBIOS Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Processor,Memory,  Operating System Information, Device drivers installed,

	  List Of Software Installed, BIOS Settings (per BIOS SETUP F2 Screen)).
                              

            b. RAID_NVRAMlog.txt (RAID settings and RAID log)

            c. PCI_Log.txt (PCI Bus info).

            d. OSEvents_Log.txt (operating System Events).

     
     Note: On S1200BTS, sysinfo_log.txt does not contain BMC specific log information since this is BMC-less SKU.

     Uninstallation:
     ---------------

     UEFI
     ----

     1. Remove the folder in which sysinfo.efi present.

     Windows
     -------

     1. Go to "windows\Binaries\" folder in the main folder

     2. Run uninstall.bat (for un-installing sysinfo).

     Linux
     -----

     1. Run the './uninstall.sh' present in Linux/RHEL folder or Linux/SUSE folder depends on Linux distribution.

     2. Remove the Linux folder.


6. Usage
--------

UEFI
----

   1. Command line Interface

             sysinfo.efi
 
      a. To view the command-line help page:

             sysinfo.efi -h or -?

      b. sysinfo logs system information in 3 log files (sysinfo_log.txt, RAID_NVRAMlog.txt, PCI_log.txt).

             sysinfo.efi

      c. sysinfo logs system information in 3 log files (sysinfo_log.txt, RAID_NVRAMlog.txt, PCI_log.txt) in a non-interactive way.

             sysinfo.efi -ni

Windows
-------

   1. Command line Interface

             sysinfo.exe 			 

      a. To view the command-line help page:

             sysinfo.exe -h or -?

      b. sysinfo logs system information in 3 log files (sysinfo_log.txt, RAID_NVRAMlog.txt, OS_Eventlog.txt).

             sysinfo.exe [followed by ENTER key]

      c. sysinfo logs system information in 3 log files (sysinfo_log.txt, RAID_NVRAMlog.txt, PCI_log.txt) in a non-interactive way.

             sysinfo.exe -ni

      d. sysinfo logs system information in 2 log files (SATA_log.txt, PCI_log.txt).

	     sysinfo.exe -sata -pci

Linux
-----

   1. Command line Interface

             ./sysinfo

      a. To view the command-line help page:

             ./sysinfo -h or -?

      b. sysinfo logs system information in 4 log files (sysinfo_log.txt, RAID_NVRAMlog.txt, PCI_log.txt, OSEvents_log.txt).

             ./sysinfo

      c. sysinfo logs system information in 4 log files (sysinfo_log.txt, RAID_NVRAMlog.txt, PCI_log.txt, OSEvents_log.txt) in user specified output directory.

             ./sysinfo <output_dir>

      d. sysinfo logs system information in 4 log files (sysinfo_log.txt, RAID_NVRAMlog.txt, PCI_log.txt, OSEvents_log.txt) in a non-interactive way.

             ./sysinfo -ni

      e. sysinfo logs system information in 4 log files (sysinfo_log.txt, RAID_NVRAMlog.txt, PCI_log.txt, OSEvents_log.txt) in user specified output directory in a non-interactive way.

             ./sysinfo -ni <output_dir>

      Note: Sysinfo Utility in Linux can be invoked from any directory. Hence, the utility can also be invoked as "sysinfo" instead of "./sysinfo".

7. Known Issues
---------------

   1. There are a few additional BIOS settings related to Boot Options(not seen in the F2 screen) logged in the file. 
   2. The channel information for an unsupported channel number for the platform would be logged as an error in the file.
   3. The system information retrieval takes around 11 minutes on S1200RP/S1400/S1600/S2400/S2600/S4600 platform series in UEFI.  
   4. Sensor information logged in UEFI in sysinfo_log.txt, contains junk characters when viewed on Windows OS.
   5. IPV6 Configuration is not supported on S1200 platform series.
   6. WinPE3.x/4.x EM64T binary does not support OS related information retrieve (including OS event, SATA, PCI bus information).


8. Supported Features in the release
---------------------------------

Build 11
---------
  1. Support to save BIOS settings on Windows 2012 R2 & WinPE4.0 64bit (UEFI 2.1 BIOS)
       

9. Legal Information
--------------------
========================================================
                               LEGAL INFORMATION
========================================================

Informaton in this document is provided in connection with Intel Products
and for the purpose of supporting Intel developed server boards and systems.
No license, express or implied, by estoppel or otherwise, to any intellectual 
property rights is granted by this document. Except as provided in Intel's 
Terms and Conditions of Sale for such products, Intel assumes no liability 
whatsoever, and Intel disclaims any express or implied warranty, relating to 
sale and/or use of Intel products including liability or warranties relating 
to fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability, or infringement of any 
patent, copyright or other intellectual property right. Intel Corporation may 
have patents or pending patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other 
intellectual property rights that relate to the presented subject matter.  
The furnishing of documents and other materials and information does not 
provide any license, express or implied, by estoppel or otherwise, to any 
such patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights.  
Intel products are not intended for use in medical, life saving, or life 
sustaining applications. Intel may make changes to specifications and product 
descriptions at any time, without notice.
Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. 
*Other names and brands are the property of their respective owners.
Copyright (c) 2013 Intel Corporation.
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