Sun Fire Entry-Level Midrange Systems Firmware 5.20.0 Release Notes |
This document provides information on new and revised features, as well as late-breaking news, for firmware release 5.20.0 on Sun Fire E2900 Sun Fire V1280, Netra 1280, and Netra 1290 systems.
This document contains the following topics:
This section provides a brief description of the new features in 5.20.0 for Sun Fire entry-level midrange systems.
The 5.20.0 release supports the new Netra 1290 systems. The minimum firmware release for Netra 1290 systems is 5.20.0.
The 5.20.0 release supports UltraSPARC IV+ CPU/Memory boards - For information on upgrading systems with UltraSPARC IV+ CPU/Memory boards, refer to the Sun Fire E2900/V1280 1.8GHz CPU/Memory Board Upgrade Requirements (819-3242-10) and the Sun Fire E2900 System Service Manual (817-4054) or Sun Fire V1280/Netra 1280 Systems Service Manual (817-0510).
The 5.20.0 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 following SC command was modified in 5.20.0:
For details on this command, refer to its description in the Sun Fire Entry-Level Midrange System Controller Command Reference Manual.
Sun Fire E2900 systems require 5.17.0 firmware or greater and the Solaris 8 2/04 or Solaris 9 4/04 operating environments as the minimum Solaris releases. Sun Fire E2900 systems and Sun Fire V1280 systems with UltraSPARC IV+ CPU/Memory boards or PCI-X I/O boards (or both) require a minimum release of 5.19.0 firmware and compatible releases of the Solaris 10 or Solaris 9 operating system (when available) as the minimum Solaris releases.
Certain hardware components require minimum firmware revisions in midrange entry-level systems, as follows:
In order to use the Sun Fire Link interconnect with 5.20.0 firmware, you must use either Solaris 8 or Solaris 9 operating systems.
Instructions for updating firmware (upgrade and downgrade) are provided in the Sun Fire Entry-Level Midrange System Administration Guide.
This section describes only those bugs with potentially significant impact. The README file lists all bugs, including those seen only internally at Sun.
New Daylight Saving Time (DST) rules come into effect (depending upon time zone) on Sunday March 11, 2007. For example, In 2006 Pacific Standard Daylight Saving Time (PDT) starts on Sunday April 2, and ends on Sunday October 29. In 2007 PDT starts on Sunday March 11, and ends on Sunday November 4.
The DST rules have changed due to the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 with changes beginning in 2007. A subset of these changes were instituted in 2006 in conjunction with the Australian Commonwealth Games.
As a reminder, the system controller (SC) will issue reboot warning messages on SC consoles, printing once a day starting on January 1, 2007. For example,
WARNING: SC was booted in year 2006, and SC current year is 2007. Please reboot the SC to get the current Daylight Saving Time rules. |
To load the new DST rules, reboot the SC between January 1, 2007 and Sunday March 11, 2007.
The I/O type of some boards in entry-level midrange systems can be reported differently by OBP and ScApp. For example,
POST shows the I/O board as PCI+ :
The ScApp showboards command shows the same I/O board as PCIX:
... Board 6, Type: PCIX IO port 24 - Status = Pass, Type: PCIX IO port 25 - Status = Pass, Type: PCIX IO ... |
When in doubt, rely on the board type reported by ScApp.
If you change the connection type after updating firmware on entry-level midrange systems from 5.17.x, 5.18.x, 5.19.x, or 5.20.x to 5.13.x, then the new connection type (selected in 5.13.x) is not guaranteed once you update firmware back to 5.17.x, 5.18.x, 5.19.x, or 5.20.x. If you subsequently update the firmware to 5.17.x, 5.18.x, 5.19.x, or 5.20.x from 5.13.x, the original connection type that you had in 5.17.x, 5.18.x, 5.19.x, or 5.20.x before the change to 5.13.x will be restored.
Workaround: Set the connection type explicitly (using the setupnetwork command) to ensure system security.
A message indicating that there are dropped console messages is displayed when data is being provided by Solaris software or by the OpenBoot PROM faster than the system controller can write it to the console.
If a power failure and SC reboot occurs during an add segment operation, one or more SEEPROM segments may become corrupted upon a reboot. However, even though these error messages display, the availability of the domains is not affected.
On Sun Fire E2900 systems containing UltraSPARC IV+ CPU/memory boards, the prtdiag command can report an incorrect speed if the command is executed after a DR operation that includes a change of processor speeds.
Workaround: Kill and then restart the picld daemon. For example,
In some systems using UltraSPARC IV+ CPU/memory boards, the use of this command,
# cfgadm -c unconfigure N0.SB0::memory
Workaround: Apply the appropriate patches to your Solaris OS.
Opening multiple remote connections (such as SSH) to the SC can cause the SC to reset. Crashes appear to be more likely when multiple remote connections are running at the same time as performing domain reconfiguration (DR) operations.
Workaround: Limit the number of remote connections to the SC, especially during DR operations.
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