BMC Operating Mode [Manual / Normal]

[vishwa]

Sorry, resuming the discussion only now. Had to keep the discussion on 
back burner due to other things.

Ed, I am not sure if you are still watching this space..

On 8/14/19 2:33 AM, Ed Tanous wrote:
> On 8/9/19 12:13 AM, vishwa wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> IBM systems have a need to run BMC either in Manual or Normal Mode. What
>> it means is this:
>>
>> Manual: It's mostly a lab / debug mode, where in the system would be
>> booted with recovery disabled.
>> For example: If we enter Quiesce state as part of power-on, then BMC
>> remains in Quiesce state and would *not* attempt to re power-on and
>> reboot the system.
>>
>> Normal: This is the default customer mode with recovery enabled in BMC.
>> For example: If we enter Quiesce state as part of power-on, then an
>> attempt will automatically be done to re power-on and boot the system.
> We have a very similar mechanism in our non-OpenBMC stack.  We would
> likely be interested in a generic interface for it, although the details
> are different, as the BMC doesn't really monitor Quiesce, but the state
> of the boot through ACPI and power rails.
>
How about having a policy defined in "xyz/openbmc_project/setting/" ?.

>> There are other use-cases, where BMC does a Automatic power-on after
>> coming back from an AC loss. Manual / Normal would influence this.
> This is classically a separate setting called "power restore policy".  I
> suspect you likely want to keep these separate as well, as the power
> policy is something that a user is likely to set independent of
> lab/debug/manual mode.
>
Yes.. 2 different things. However, if the user has set "power restore 
--> yes" and then set the mode to "Manual", then "power restore" will 
behave as if nothing was set.

So, this proposed mode [Normal/Maintenance] is sort of a gate-keeper for 
any of these recovery actions.

>> My current thought is to make this a settings in phosphor-settings.
>> Looking to see if others have any use-case like this.