C H A P T E R 5

System Controller

This chapter contains the following sections:

Section 5.1, Upgrading the System Controller (SC) Firmware

Section 5.2, What To Do If You Lose Your Password for the System Controller

Section 5.3, System Controller Software Issues

5.1 Upgrading the System Controller (SC) Firmware

To support Sun Fire B200x blades in a Sun Fire B1600 blade system chassis, you must be running System Controller firmware version 1.2. To perform the upgrade of the System Controller firmware, follow the instructions in the Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis Administration Guide (Chapter 10).

5.2 What To Do If You Lose Your Password for the System Controller

There is a method described in Chapter 9 of the Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis Administration Guide (on the Documentation CD) for regaining access to the System Controller if you have forgotten your password.

Note - It is possible that the method described on the CD you have received is incorrect.

If you lose your password to the System Controller, the correct procedure for regaining access to the device is as follows:

1. Remove and then re-insert one of the power supplies.

2. Within five minutes of re-inserting the power supply, set up a serial connection to the SSC containing the active System Controller and log in as user admin.

For information about setting up a serial connection to the SSC, see the Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis Hardware Installation Guide.

To log in, type the default user name admin and when prompted for a password, press [ENTER].:

username: admin

password: [ENTER]

3. At the sc> prompt, set a new password for the default user (admin).

To set a new password for user admin, type:

sc>password

Enter new password:*****

Enter new password again: *****

New password set for user admin successfully

sc>

The password you specify can be up to eight characters long. It must begin with an alphabetic character, and it must contain at least one lower-case alphabetic character. You can use any of the following characters in the password:

Alphabetic

Numeric

Period (.)

Underscore (_)

Hyphen (-)

4. Set up a new user name and password for yourself.

To do this, follow the instructions in Chapter 3 of the Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis Administration Guide.

5.3 System Controller Software Issues

5.3.1 System Controller Firmware 1.2

The following known problems apply to the current release of the System Controller firmware for this product:

4879114: System Controller sometimes resets or fails over if its netmask is invalid: If you have an invalid netmask configured for the System Controller, you may see the following or a similar error message in response to ARP requests generated by the System Controller:

arptnew failed on xxxxxxxx

where xxxxxxxx is the hexadecimal representation of an IP address. If you see an error message like this, it will be followed by a reset of the System Controller (if you are operating the chassis with a single System Controller) or a failover to the standby System Controller (if you are operating a chassis containing a redundant System Controller).

To avoid this problem make sure you configure the System Controller with a netmask that is valid for your network. If you are using DHCP to allocate IP addresses, make sure your DHCP server is configured to provide a netmask that is valid for your network.

4885940: Poweron of Standby SSC fails due to spurious environmental errors: If you run the removefru command followed by the poweron command on the standby System Controller without physically removing the SSC module containing the standby System Controller, you may see spurious environmental errors being notified for the standby SC. These errors do not indicate any real problem with the SC hardware and the problem can be cleared by issuing a poweron command for the standby SC. Alternatively, physically removing and re-inserting that SC will also clear the problem.

5.3.2 System Controller Firmware 1.1

The following known problems applied to release 1.1 of the System Controller firmware (they are fixed in release 1.2):

4866668: When the message 'Dynamic FRUID packet discovery failure recovered' shows in the logs for a blade, it is possible that some fault events will be missing or only partially described.

This problem can occur if the System Controller is reset immediately after an event has been reported on the serial console. In other words, it happens if the System Controller has not completed writing the information to its event logs when the reset is performed.

To avoid the problem, if you see an event reported on your serial console, wait at least 30 seconds before executing the resetsc or setfailover command.

4868129: Typing reset -xy sn (where n is the number of a blade slot) resets all FRUs in a shelf.

The syntax of the above command is correct, but the software does not process it correctly. The consequence, if you type the command in this way, is that all FRUs in the chassis will be reset.

To avoid this problem, when you perform an externally initiated reset on a blade (by using the -x option) and you specifically do not want to receive the confirmation prompt (the -y option), make sure you separate the arguments as follows when you type the command:

sc>reset -x -y sn

where n is the number of the slot containing the blade you want to reset.

5.3.3 System Controller Firmware 1.0

The following known problems applied to release 1.0 of the System Controller firmware (they are fixed in release 1.1):

4810785: Recovery from output rail faults is not correctly reported under some circumstances. A PSU output rail fault is correctly reported when a fault occurs, but recovery from the fault may not be correctly reported under certain circumstances. For instance, when a PSU output rail fault is detected (the most likely reason for this is a blade fault causing a PSU rail to stop providing power), a fault will be logged by the System Controller.

However, when the underlying fault is removed (in other words, when the blade causing the problem is removed from the chassis), the System Controller will not report the recovery of this rail and will continue to light the service required LED on the affected PSU and on the chassis (even though service is not in fact required).

When the component causing the underlying problem has been replaced, the showplatform and showenvironment commands will correctly report that there are no faults on the system. However, the service LED on the PSU will still remain lit. To turn it off after replacing the component that caused the underlying problem, type the following commands from the System Controller's sc> prompt:

sc>removefru -y psn

sc>poweron psn

where n is either 0 or 1 depending on the Power Supply Unit involved. (You do not need to remove the Power Supply Unit.)

Note - Executing the removefru command prepares the PSU for removal but does not stop the PSU from providing power to the chassis. However, it does prevent environmental monitoring of the PSU by the System Controller. This is restored when you run the poweron psn command. Therefore, when you do this, the service LED will be reset.

4826948: System Controller hangs if you telnet into it, type removefru (without
-y) for a specified FRU, and then close the telnet window.
If you telnet into the System Controller and use the removefru command without the -y option, you are asked to confirm that you want to remove the FRU. If you do not answer but instead close the telnet window, the System Controller hangs. To restart the System Controller, you must eject it from the chassis and then push it back in.