Update hardware.md

hardware.md

@@ -1,3 +1,28 @@
+## Preparing hardware for the GlobalOS
+
+- CPU:
+    - CPU control on frequency should be given to the OS
+    - Enable all settings to performance, avoid "power saving" , "efficient" or "balanced"
+- Memory:
+    - Make sure memory sticks propagated properly per-CPU and to utilize channels properly. Check server or motherboard manual for more information.
+    - DIMM frequency should be set to the maximum supported by the RAM. We can verify that by running `dmidecode -t memory` and checking the frequency of the DIMMs.
+    - Make sure to disable "Memory Interleaving" in the BIOS for NUMA systems.
+- Boot settings:
+    - Disable "Secure Boot"
+    - Enable "EFI" boot mode (CSM supported, but not stable)
+    - Make USB stick or your boot media boot first. Install will be done from USB stick
+    - Disable PXE boot and PXE options from the BIOS
+- Network:
+    - Preferable to disable NIC you are not planning to use
+- iLOM/DRAC/BMC/IPMI
+    - Make sure to configure it to be accessible from the network, it is very useful for recovery and monitoring
+- Network cards
+    - Make sure you have enough lanes in your slot. Some PCIe risers have 8x lane slot, but only 4x are propagated on the motherboard. Motherboard manual will have the information, but we can also check that on boot.
+    - If you are installing multiple network cards, and you have dual CPU, make sure to install them in different NUMA nodes.
+    - Make sure you have spare SFP/DAC, preferable different brands if you didn't tested them with your network cards.
+- Boot storage/media
+    - If you are using USB stick, make sure it is geniune/not fake. You can check that by: ValiDrive https://www.grc.com/validrive.htm , best one is H2testw https://h2testw.org/
+
 ## How to verify PCIe slot
 
 If you install card in 4x lane PCIe slot, while card designed for 8x PCIe, most likely your card wont be able to reach max bandwidth and will drop packets due PCIe bus bandwidth limit.