Deploying RHEL with ECI DNF Repository

Prepare Target System with RHEL

The section is applicable to:

To leverage all ECI features, the target system should meet the recommended system requirements. Also, the target system must have a compatible OS so that you can install ECI Deb packages. This section explains the procedure to install a compatible OS on the target system.

Please note, some feature compatibility (ex: integrated graphics) is dependent on the OS distribution installed on your Intel platform.

Use the table below to determine which ECI supported OS distribution(s) you should use with your Intel® platform to achieve best results:

Distribution	Distribution Version	< Intel® platforms >
		Series 1 Core™ Ultra (MTL) Meteor Lake	7000 Series Intel Atom® (ASL) Amston Lake	14th/13th Gen Core™ (RPL) Raptor Lake	12th Gen Core™ (ADL) Alder Lake	Xeon® D-1700 (ICL-D) Ice Lake D	6000E Series Intel Atom®™ (EHL) Elkhart Lake	11th Gen Core™ (TGL) Tiger Lake	9th/8th Gen Core™ (CFL/WHL) Coffee/Whiskey Lake
< Debian >	Debian 12 (Bookworm) .	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
	Debian 11 (Bullseye) .				✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
< Canonical® Ubuntu® >	Canonical® Ubuntu® 24.04 (Noble Numbat) .	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
	Canonical® Ubuntu® 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish) .		✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
< Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® >	Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 9.3 (Plow) .		✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔

Do the following to prepare the target system:

1. To achieve real-time determinism and utilize the available Intel® silicon features, you need to configure certain BIOS settings. Reboot the target system and access the BIOS (press the delete or F2 keys while booting to open the BIOS menu).

   

2. Select Restore Defaults or Load Defaults, and then select Save Changes and Reset. As the target system boots, access the BIOS again.

3. Modify the BIOS configuration as listed in the following table.

   Note: The available configurations depend on the platform, BIOS in use, or both. Modify as many configurations as possible.

   Atom & Core ProcessorsXeon Processors

   Setting Name	Option	Setting Menu
   Hyper-Threading	Disabled	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ CPU Configuration
   Intel Virtualization Technology (VT-x)	Disabled* (see footnote)	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ CPU Configuration
   Intel(R) SpeedStep	Disabled	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ CPU - Power Management Control
   Turbo Mode	Disabled	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ CPU - Power Management Control
   C States	Disabled	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ CPU - Power Management Control
   RC6 (Render Standby)	Disabled	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ GT - Power Management Control
   Maximum GT freq	Lowest (usually 100MHz)	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ GT - Power Management Control
   SA GV	Fixed High	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Memory Configuration
   VT-d	Enabled* (see footnote)	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ System Agent (SA) Configuration
   PCI Express Clock Gating	Disabled	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ System Agent (SA) Configuration ⟶ PCI Express Configuration
   Gfx Low Power Mode	Disabled	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ System Agent (SA) Configuration ⟶ Graphics Configuration
   ACPI S3 Support	Disabled	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ ACPI Settings
   Native ASPM	Disabled	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ ACPI Settings
   Legacy IO Low Latency	Enabled	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ PCH-IO Configuration
   PCH Cross Throttling	Disabled	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ PCH-IO Configuration
   Delay Enable DMI ASPM	Disabled	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ PCH-IO Configuration ⟶ PCI Express Configuration
   DMI Link ASPM	Disabled	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ PCH-IO Configuration ⟶ PCI Express Configuration
   Aggressive LPM Support	Disabled	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ PCH-IO Configuration ⟶ SATA And RST Configuration
   USB Periodic SMI	Disabled	Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ LEGACY USB Configuration

   • VT-x and VT-d are required by most virtualization solutions (KVM, RTH Hypervisor, ACRN Hypervisor, etc.), so set to enabled for greatest compatibility. However, if you know that virtualization will not be used, you can safely set VT-x and VT-d to disabled.

Adding ECI DNF Repository

To add the ECI DNF repository to RHEL, it is recommended to use an rpm-ostree based deployment. The RHEL Image Builder tool is capable of producing an rpm-ostree image with external repositories, and is used to accomplish this goal. Alternatively, is it possible to add external repositories using the DNF Package Manager, but you may find this method to be more maintenance in the long run. Select the tab below corresponding to your desired method.

RHEL Image BuilderDNF Package Manager

This section explains the procedure to configure the RHEL Image Builder with the hosted ECI DNF repository.

Make sure that you have prepared the target system.

1. Follow the steps to install and use RHEL Image Builder.

2. When you arrive at the step to add custom third-party repositories, create a repository source file for the ECI DNF Repository using the following URL:

   https://eci.intel.com/repos/rhel/9/x86_64
   https://eci.intel.com/repos/rhel/9/noarch
   

   For example:

   id = "intel-eci"
   name = "Intel Edge Controls for Industrial (x86_64)"
   type = "yum-baseurl"
   url = "https://eci.intel.com/repos/rhel/9/x86_64"
   check_gpg = true
   gpgkeys=["https://eci.intel.com/repos/gpg-keys/GPG-PUB-KEY-INTEL-ECI.gpg"]
   
   id = "intel-eci-noarch"
   name = "Intel Edge Controls for Industrial (noarch)"
   type = "yum-baseurl"
   url = "https://eci.intel.com/repos/rhel/9/noarch"
   check_gpg = true
   gpgkeys=["https://eci.intel.com/repos/gpg-keys/GPG-PUB-KEY-INTEL-ECI.gpg"]
   

3. Complete the remaining process to create a RHEL system image with the RHEL Image Builder.

4. Deploy the RHEL system image to your target system.

What Next after Deploying RHEL with ECI DNF Repository

Now you’re ready to install ECI packages. Click the box below to continue to the next section.

• Install Packages

  

  Click here to use the packages provided with the ECI release. This is the quickest and easiest way to start using ECI.