Managing LED groups and physical LEDs through BMC

Overview

LEDs that are present in the system can be managed by: BMC / Hardware controller / Operating system. This document describes how to control the LEDs that are managed by BMC.

Understanding LED groups

While it is entirely possible to act directly on a physical LED, it makes hard when more than one LED is to be acted on for a particular usecase.

For example: Certain systems may have a requirement to Blink one particular LED upon reaching some state. However, some other systems may have a requirement to Blink set of LEDs in different frequencies. Few more systems may have a requirement to act on set of LEDs with different actions. Meaning, some LEDs to be solid [ON] while some LEDs to be Blinking etc.

As described above, it is more of a system specific policy on what set of LEDs to be acted on in different usecases. Taking all that complexity into the code makes it impossible to extend across implementations and hence the need of a manager that works on the set of LEDs and policies and that is the Group.

To make concept of Group more evident, here is another example: Consider a requirement of blinking system Enclosure LED indicating an internal problem:

If the DIMM has some issues then the system admin needs a way of identifying that system before acting on it. In one case, the LED group may consist of DIMM LED + Enclosure Fault LED. However, if the DIMM is attached to a Raiser card, then the LED group may consist of DIMM LED + Raise card LED + Enclosure Fault LED. Defining this path will make it easier to locate the box and the exact part that needs servicing.

Definition of LED groups could be static or generated from MRW and must be in YAML format. A group definition looks like this:

bmc_booted:
  led_1:
    Action: On
    Frequency: 1000
  led_2:
    Action: Blink
    Frequency: 1000
    DutyOn: 50

enclosure_identify:
  id_front:
    Action: Blink
    Frequency: 1000
    DutyOn: 50
  id_rear:
    Action: Blink
    Frequency: 1000
    DutyOn: 50

This says that the group bmc_booted consists of 2 physical LEDs in it. When this group is acted on, led_1 will turn solid [ON], while led_2 would be blinking at 50% duty cycle.

Dbus interfaces for LED groups

Refer to the specification.

There is only one property called asserted defined on groups and when set to boolean true, the actions listed for the LEDs in that group will get into effect as described above. When the property is set to false, the actions are un-done.

• Henceforth, the term asserted would mean writing boolean true onto assert property of the group. Term de-assert would mean writing false to assert property.

Group Dbus information

Path: /xyz/openbmc_project/led/groups/<name> Interface: xyz.openbmc_Project.Led.Group

Using the yaml definition above, a user can just set the asserted property to boolean true on /xyz/openbmc_project/led/groups/enclosure_identify and that would result in blinking the front and rear Identify LEDs of the enclosure.

Mandatory groups

It is mandatory that all implementations provide definitions of atleast 2 groups namely; bmc_booted and power_on. Those would be asserted post reaching BMCReady and PowerOn respecively. It is fine to have no LEDs in those groups but the group as such is deemed required.

Example: The Group yaml may just be;

bmc_booted:
power_on:

For the IPMI command "chassis identify" to function, enclosure_identify must also be implemented.

Understanding Physical LEDs

It is always recommended that external users use only the LED groups. Describing the Physical LED here just for documenting it and strictly NOT to be used outside of the firmware code.

Dbus interfaces for physical LEDs

Refer to the specification.

Dbus information

Path: /xyz/openbmc_project/led/physical/<name> Interface: xyz.openbmc_Project.Led.Physical

Using /xyz/openbmc_project/led/groups/enclosure_identify as example; setting the asserted property to true would result in these actions in id_front and id_rear physical LEDs.

1. Property DutyOn is set to 50 in; /xyz/openbmc/project/led/physical/id_front and /xyz/openbmc/project/led/physical/id_rear

2. Property State is set to xyz.openbmc_project.Led.Physical.Action.On in /xyz/openbmc/project/led/physical/id_front and /xyz/openbmc/project/led/physical/id_rear

Which means, if some test wants to verify if the action on Group really resulted in acting on physical LED, those are the properties to be read from physical service.