Sunday, June 14, 2020

Running AIX with 2 GiB of RAM and beyond

Trying to find out how much RAM can be given to a PPC PReP machine. In the IBM 40p the PCI host controller is sitting at 0x80000000, which means that in theory 2 GiB can be easily given:

QEMU PReP/40p, Serial #0, 2 GiB memory installed
Open Firmware, built  June 14, 2020 13:25:09
Copyright (c) 1995-2000, FirmWorks.
Copyright (c) 2014,2017,2019,2020 Artyom Tarasenko.

Rebooting with command: boot /pci/scsi@1/disk@0,0:1
Boot device: /pci/scsi@1/disk@0,0:1  Arguments: 

Saving Base Customize Data to boot disk
Starting the sync daemon
Starting the error daemon
System initialization completed.
Starting Multi-user Initialization
 Performing auto-varyon of Volume Groups 
 Activating all paging spaces 
0517-075 swapon: Paging device /dev/hd6 is already active.

And it even is recognized by AIX 5.1:

AIX Version 5
(C) Copyrights by IBM and by others 1982, 2000.
Console login: root
*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                                                                             *
*  Welcome to AIX Version 5.1!                                                *
*                                                                             *
*                                                                             *
*  Please see the README file in /usr/lpp/bos for information pertinent to    *
*  this release of the AIX Operating System.                                  *
*                                                                             *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************

#  lsattr -El mem0 
size     2048 Total amount of physical memory in Mbytes  False
goodsize 2048 Amount of usable physical memory in Mbytes False
# 

Now I wonder, there were some 32 bit  RS/6000 machines with 3 GiB RAM, where there any PReP machines among them?

8 comments:

Marlon José said...

Awesome, I will give a try.

Marlon José said...

If it helps, I have access to a IBM 7025-F80 with 3584MB of memory (but chrp arch).


System Model: IBM,7025-F80
Machine Serial Number:
Processor Type: PowerPC_RS64-IV
Processor Implementation Mode: POWER RS64III
Processor Version: PV_RS64III
Number Of Processors: 2
Processor Clock Speed: 602 MHz
CPU Type: 64-bit
Kernel Type: 32-bit
Memory Size: 3584 MB
Good Memory Size: 3584 MB
Platform Firmware level: CL060505
Firmware Version: IBM,M2P060505_condor_
Console Login: enable
Auto Restart: true
Full Core: false

Model Architecture: chrp
Model Implementation: Multiple Processor, PCI bus

+ sys0 System Object
+ sysplanar0 System Planar
* pci1 P1 PCI Bus
* pci6 P1 PCI Bus
+ ent0 P1/E1 IBM 10/100 Mbps Ethernet PCI Adapter (23100020)
* pci7 P1 PCI Bus
* pci8 P1 PCI Bus
* pci9 P1 PCI Bus
* pci10 P1 PCI Bus
* pci11 P1 PCI Bus
* pci12 P1 PCI Bus
* pci13 P1 PCI Bus
+ ssa0 P1-I9/Q1 IBM SSA 160 SerialRAID Adapter (14109100)
* pci0 P1 PCI Bus
* isa0 P1 ISA Bus
+ fda0 P1/D1 Standard I/O Diskette Adapter
+ fd0 P1-D1 Diskette Drive
* siokma0 P1/K1 Keyboard/Mouse Adapter
+ sioka0 P1/K1 Keyboard Adapter
+ sioma0 P1/K1 Mouse Adapter
+ ppa0 P1/R1 CHRP IEEE1284 (ECP) Parallel Port Adapter
+ sa0 P1/S1 Standard I/O Serial Port
+ tty0 P1/S1-L0 Asynchronous Terminal
+ sa1 P1/S2 Standard I/O Serial Port
+ sa2 P1/S3 Standard I/O Serial Port
+ sa3 P1/S4 Standard I/O Serial Port
* pci2 P1 PCI Bus
+ scsi0 P1/Z1 Wide/Ultra-2 SCSI I/O Controller
+ cd0 P1/Z1-A6 SCSI Multimedia CD-ROM Drive (650 MB)
+ hdisk2 P1/Z1-A9 Other SCSI Disk Drive
+ hdisk1 P1/Z1-AB 16 Bit LVD SCSI Disk Drive (73400 MB)
+ hdisk3 P1/Z1-AD Other SCSI Disk Drive
+ ses0 P1/Z1-AF SCSI Enclosure Services Device
+ scsi1 P1/Z2 Wide/Ultra-2 SCSI I/O Controller
* pci3 P1 PCI Bus
* pci4 P1 PCI Bus
* pci5 P1 PCI Bus
+ L2cache0 L2 Cache
+ mem0 Memory
+ proc0 P1-C1 Processor
+ proc2 P1-C1 Processor

Keith said...

I was able to get AIX installed with your steps from 2019-04-13, but the firmware is hardcoded for 128 MB.

In this article, you have it running with 2 GB RAM. Is that firmware available?

Anonymous said...

@Keith I agree, it would be nice to know how to get this firmware.

atar said...

Haven't published it (yet).

Keith said...

Can you post a link, or give a tell us how to modify the source code to expand the RAM ?

subbu said...

Hi i need to contact you pls send your email id ...my email id : reddy.subbu999@gmail.com

Bailey said...

@atar can you please publish the firmware? I want use more memory in the vm, thanks very much!