[Skiboot] opal-prd and skiboot updates

[Stewart Smith]

Sergey Kachkin <s.kachkin at gmail.com> writes:
> i've got a question regarding opal-prd daemon.
> If I understand correctly this daemon is must on any OpenPower machine as
> it is need to convert PEL to eSEL and send to BMC. So without opal-prd eSEL
> will be hidden until the next IPL.

Only for certain events. Not everything involves code that opal-prd
runs, and you can happily run a system without ever running
opal-prd. The benefit of running with it is that you have the ability to
pre-emptively recover from some particular types of errors.

> The question is when skiboot is updated we may need to update opal-prd
> also.

generally not. Sometimes this is the case (e.g. to fix a bug), but it's
pretty rare. I think the only one we've *really* required is with POWER9
systems. You might not get new RAS (Reliability and Serviceability)
features by not upgrading, but it should work fine.

> How to verify that current 'opal-prd' version is fully functional?  For
> example, can we manually generate a PEL and verify that opal-prd handles it
> correctly?

Distros should have current versions, we tend to be pretty good with
getting updates into distros.

> Updating opal-prd during each  FW upgrade may be complicated and I wonder
> if we can go with some minimum opal-prd version for a specific
> skiboot?

What's in the distro should be fine. If it's not, then poke as and we'll
fix it :)

-- 
Stewart Smith
OPAL Architect, IBM.