| Sun Fire Midrange Systems Firmware 5.19.0 Release Notes |     |
| Sun Fire Midrange Systems Firmware 5.19.0 Release Notes | |
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Sun Fire  Midrange Systems Firmware 5.19.0 Release Notes
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This document provides general information and system limitations for firmware release 5.19.0 on Sun Fire E6900/E4900/6800/4810/4800/3800 systems.
This document contains the following topics:
The following documentation sets are included with the 5.19.0 firmware:
For firmware upgrade and downgrade information on entry-level midrange (E2900/V1280/Netra 1280) systems, refer to the Sun Fire Entry-Level Midrange System Administration Guide.
This section provides a brief description of the new features in 5.19.0 for Sun Fire midrange systems.
The 5.19.0 release supports the following:
5.19.0 firmware reduces the time required to perform a power-on self-test (POST) operation. Code optimizations as well as the use of parallel testing algorithms have enabled a significant decrease in test time while maintaining the same fault diagnosis coverage as that provided with earlier versions of the firmware.
When comparing the 5.19.0 release to the 5.18.0 release, Sun has measured reductions in POST elapsed time of between 20 and 70 percent. Your experience may differ, depending on your system's configuration and the settings of firmware configuration parameters such as diag-level and verbosity-level. The largest improvements can be seen on systems with UltraSPARC IV or UltraSPARC IV+ processors, containing substantial amounts of memory, and running with
diag-level values of mem1 or mem2.
The 5.19.0 firmware release, when used on systems with domains running the Solaris 10 Operating System, provides information on Solaris-detected hardware fault events. This information is captured by Solaris software and then communicated to the system controller. The system controller reports this information through automatic diagnosis (AD) and domain (DOM) event messages.
The values of max-panic-diag-limit are the same as diag-level.The default value of max-panic-diag-limit is mem2.
The following SC command was added in 5.19.0:
For details on these commands, refer to their descriptions in the Sun Fire Midrange System Controller Command Reference Manual.
E6900/E4900 systems and midrange systems with UltraSPARC IV+ CPU/Memory boards or PCI-X I/O boards (or both) require 5.19.0 firmware and compatible releases of the Solaris 10 or Solaris 9 operating system (when available) as the minimum Solaris releases.
System boards running firmware versions 5.12.x through 5.19.x firmware are compatible with each other, but system boards running 5.11.x are not compatible with system boards running firmware versions 5.12.x through 5.19.x. You can check the firmware compatibility of your boards by running the
showboards -p version -v command. The information displayed indicates whether the firmware for each board is compatible with the ScApp version running on the SC.
Update all your system boards to the same firmware version and activate the new firmware version on your domains as soon as possible. Activate the domain firmware by running the setkeyswitch off and setkeyswitch on commands. For details on updating your system firmware and verifying firmware compatibility, refer to the Install.info file included with this firmware release.
Certain hardware components require minimum firmware revisions, as follows:
You can mix system boards in your Sun Fire E6900 or 6800 system configurations. The combinations of system boards affect the domain configurations that you can create. However, if a partition includes any UltraSPARC IV+ system boards, only one domain can be active within that partition.
Domain configuration options are illustrated in TABLE 0-1:
Similar considerations apply when configuring domains in Sun Fire E4900 or 4800 systems. See TABLE 0-2:
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Use the setupplatform command to change usiv+ support for Domains A or C
For further information about the setupplatform command, see the Sun Fire Midrange System Controller Command Reference Manual.
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Use the showplatform -p usiv+ command
schostname:A> showplatform -p usiv+ UltraSPARC IV+ is supported in domain A UltraSPARC IV+ is not supported in domain C |
If your Sun Fire E6900 or E4900 server is configured as:
Then you cannot add an I/O board to the domain using the DR connect and configure commands. However, you can use the DR unconfigure and disconnect commands on an I/O board in the described system.
This restriction arises because DR requires a second domain in which the I/O board can be tested. Please refer to the platform administration manual for further information on removing and replacing boards.
Instructions for upgrading firmware are provided in the Install.info file included with this firmware release for Sun Fire midrange systems. The Install.info file also contains instructions for downgrading to an earlier version of the firmware.
E6900/E4900 systems and systems that contain UltraSPARC IV CPU/Memory boards must run firmware version 5.16.0 or greater. Earlier firmware versions do not support the UltraSPARC IV CPU/Memory boards.
E6900/E4900 systems and systems that contain UltraSPARC IV+ CPU/Memory boards must run firmware version 5.19.0 or greater. Earlier firmware versions do not support the UltraSPARC IV+ CPU/Memory boards.
Midrange systems with SC V2s can be downgraded from 5.19.0 to earlier firmware releases, but note that those earlier releases will not support features and bug fixes made in 5.19.0.
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Caution - If you have a redundant system controller (SC) configuration, you must first upgrade the firmware on the spare SC, then on the main SC, as explained in the Install.infofile. |
In some cases powering off or powering on a power supply after you upgrade to firmware version 5.14.x or greater can cause a power supply fault on Sun Fire 6800/4810/4800/3800 systems.
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Note - The faults described here do not apply to the A184 and A185 power supplies. |
The power supply failure might exhibit the following characteristics:
Use the following workarounds to resolve the power supply failure. Start with
Workaround 1. If this workaround is unsuccessful, perform Workaround 2. If the second workaround is unsuccessful, perform Workaround 3.
This section describes only those bugs with potentially significant impact. The README file lists all bugs that have been fixed, including those seen only internally at Sun.
SNMP is a private interface for the midrange system controllers. This means that Sun Management Center will not receive FrameManager information through SNMP. If you have a loghost, note that FrameManager and RTU statuses can be monitored from the loghost.
A message indicating that there are dropped console messages is displayed when data is being provided by the Solaris Operating System or OpenBoot PROM faster than the system controller can write it to the console.
If you change the connection type after downgrading firmware on midrange systems from 5.17.x or 5.18.x to a lower firmware version, the new connection type selected in the lower firmware version is not guaranteed once you update the firmware back to 5.17.x or 5.18.x. If you subsequently update the firmware to 5.17.x or 5.18.x from the lower firmware version, the original connection type that you had in 5.17.x or 5.18.x before the change to a lower firmware version will be restored.
Workaround: To ensure system security, use the setupplatform command to set the connection type explicitly.
After a domain panic occurs or when a domain encounters errors, output from a subsequent setkeyswitch or testboard operation will show that the board processors have an Unknown status. For example:
Workaround: Reboot the system controller.
If a power failure and Sc reboot occur during an add segment operation, one or more SEEPROM segments may become corrupted upon a reboot. The following example log sequence shows illegal tag statements:
Even though these error messages are displayed, the availability of the domains is not affected.
If multiple users attempt to connect to the SC using SSH connections in parallel, the SC can panic, displaying the following message on the SC console:
schostname:A> 0x3c27b78 (tSshConn): memPartAlloc: block too big - 40947 in partition 0x3b8c7d0. [0x3c27b78] xrealloc: out of memory (new_size 40947 bytes) |
When used with an abbreviated form for the name of a component, the enablecomponent command sometimes reports component status incorrectly. For example:
Workaround: Use a fully specified component name, such as /N0/IB6/P1/B1/C4.
Use of some unsupported components can generate misleading messages, such as component: does not have grid power. For example:
schostname:SC> poweroff all ... /N0/IB6: does not have grid power /N0/IB7: does not have grid power /N0/IB8: does not have grid power /N0/IB9: does not have grid power ... |
Workaround: Verify that all components in the specified IB are supported.
Under some circumstances Ethernet connections to the system controller can hang. However, the serial connection continues to supply access.
Workaround: Reboot the system controller.
| Sun Fire Midrange Systems Firmware 5.19.0 Release Notes | 819-1270-10 | |
Copyright © 2005, Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
To Enable UltraSPARC IV+ Domain Support