Flash Upgrading Your Server to Release 1.2 |
This chapter contains procedures and information for upgrading Sun Fire X4600 M2 server to Release 1.2 from earlier releases. See the following sections:
The Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM) firmware (FW) and BIOS are tightly coupled and are always updated together. The software release 1.2 contains new ILOM firmware and BIOS upgrades with a number of enhancements:
1. Determine which version of the ILOM firmware that you currently have. See How to Determine The Firmware Version of Your Server.
2. Review the section Special Considerations Regarding the ILOM Firmware 1.2 Update for known issues and considerations regarding the flash upgrade.
3. Download the .ima flash image file by following the links from the URL below:
4. Use the ILOM GUI, the ILOM CLI load command, or N1 System Manager to perform the flash upgrade.
Because of the increased memory usage during web-based GUI operations, you might need to use N1 System Manager or the ILOM CLI load command to upgrade the ILOM firmware. See the N1 System Manager documentation or the Integrated Lights-Out Manager Administration Guide, 820-0280 for details of firmware flashing. For example:
From the ILOM CLI, use the following command
load -source tftp://tftpserver/firmware.ima
where tftpserver is the name of a Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) server and firmware.ima is the image file name (for example: ilomx4600m2-1.1.1.ima).
http://docs.sun.com/coll/1283.2
For instructions on performing a flash upgrade, see the section, "How to Upgrade the ILOM Firmware" in the Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM) Administration Guide, 819-1160. You can find the document at this URL:
http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hardware/docs/Servers/x64_servers/x4600m2/
5. Optional step: If you cannot get output to your serial console after the flash upgrade, you might have to clear CMOS settings. This is because your default CMOS settings might have been changed by the new BIOS upgrade.
To clear CMOS settings, use the ipmitool command. The following example assumes that there is an SP at address 10.0.0.13 that still has the default password ("changeme") for the root user.
ipmitool -U root -P changeme -H 10.0.0.13 chassis power off
ipmitool -U root -P changeme -H 10.0.0.13 chassis bootdev disk clear-cmos=yes
6. Optional step: If you have any problems with the flash upgrade, refer to the sectionRecovering From a Failed Flash Update.
This section describes three procedures for determining the firmware version.
Determining the Firmware Version Using the CLI Through the Management Ethernet Port |
1. Connect an RJ-45 Ethernet cable to the NET MGT Ethernet port on the back panel.
2. Establish an SSH command line connection. The following example assumes the SP is at 10.0.0.13
You will be prompted for a password. After you have successfully logged in, the SP displays its default command prompt:
3. Type the version command, which will return output similar to the following:
-> versionSP firmware version: 1.0SP firmware build number: 14023SP firmware date: Tue Sep 13 12:50:37 PDT 2006SP filesystem version: 0.1.13
The ILOM firmware build version is the build number listed above.
Determining the Firmware Version Using the CLI Through the Serial Port |
1. Configure your terminal device or the terminal emulation software running on a laptop or PC to the following settings:
2. Connect a serial cable from the RJ-45 SER MGT port on your server's back panel to your terminal device or PC.
3. Press Enter on the terminal device to establish a connection between that terminal device and the server's SP.
In this example login prompt, 0003BA84D777 is the Ethernet MAC address of the SP. This will be different for each server.
4. Log in to the ILOM SP and type the default user name (root) with the default password (changeme).
After you have successfully logged in, the SP displays its default command prompt:
5. Type the version command, which will return output similar to the following:
-> versionSP firmware version: 1.0SP firmware build number: 14023SP firmware date: Tue Sep 13 12:50:37 PDT 2006SP filesystem version: 0.1.13
The ILOM firmware build version is the build number listed above.
Determining the Firmware Version Using the Web GUI |
1. Connect to the ILOM Web GUI by typing the IP address of the server's SP into your browser's URL field. For example:
2. Log in to the ILOM SP and type the default user name (root) with the default password (changeme).
The first web page that is presented is the System Information -> Versions page, which includes the Build Number.
There are several methods you can use to locate ILOM SPs and their IP addresses.
For example, the following command can be used to create a list of Sun Fire X4600 servers:
n1sh show server | grep 'X4600'
There are several ways to reset the SP:
ipmitool -U root -P changeme -H 10.0.0.13 bmc reset cold
The ILOM SP is also reset when the power cables are disconnected.
For more details, see the Integrated Lights-Out Manager Administration Guide, 820-0280.
This section describes considerations that might affect the firmware upgrade.
The bootable CD used to upgrade the ILOM appears blank when viewed from the OS. This is expected behavior.
The host CPU and DIMM FRU information shown by the service processor is provided to the service processor during each BIOS power-on-self-test (POST). Therefore, after a BIOS/ILOM upgrade, this FRU information is empty until the first host BIOS POST.
This is expected behavior. Reset the server and allow it to complete POST during bootup to repopulate the FRU lists.
If you use the CLI to perform the update and JavaRConsole is active, a dialog box might appear in JavaRConsole with the following message and an OK button:
Keyboard redirection error: an established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine
This is expected behavior. Click OK in the dialog box to continue. It is possible that clicking the OK button will not close the dialog box. In that case, terminate the JavaRConsole process. For example, on a Windows platform, press Control+Alt+Delete to bring up the list of open processes, then terminate the JavaRConcole process.
Starting with ILOM 1.1.1, ILOM provides a new, more reliable flash layout. Because of the layout changes, special steps might be required to downgrade to previous ILOM 1.0.x releases.
You might have to perform the flash downgrade to 1.0.x process 2 times, to reformat the flash layout to the old format. If the flash downgrade through GUI, CLI, or N1 System Manager, does not succeed the first time, retry a second time to complete the process.
The new ILOM flash process only powers off the host if a new BIOS version is needed. The ILOM CLI load command provides the -f option to force update of all components. Use the following command to force updating all firmware components:
load -f tftp://tftpserver/firmware.ima
where tftpserver is a trivial file-transfer protocol (TFTP) server and firmware.ima is the name of the image file, such as ilom.x4600m2-1.1.1.ima.
ILOM service processor might not successfully update the BIOS version, if a previous flash upgrade has failed. If the BIOS version is not correct after ILOM flash upgrade completes, use the -f force flag on the ILOM CLI load command, to force BIOS flash upgrade. For details, see New ILOM Flash Update Layout.
Sometimes after flashing an image on SP, the ILOM WebGUI will not allow you to log in and gives "Authentication fail" error. Clearing the cache and cookies of the web browser enables you to log in as usual.
This section contains instructions for recovering from a failed Sun Fire X4600 M2 ILOM firmware upgrade. Several issues have been identified with the firmware upgrade, which could result in a failed or incomplete firmware upgrade.
Use the following procedure to recover from a failed firmware upgrade. Note that in a small percentage of cases (such as when no output is displayed on the SP serial port), the Graphics Redirect and Service Processor (GRASP) board must be replaced.
Recovery Steps |
Note - Numbers printed below are in hexidecimal unless otherwise noted. |
1. Determine if the ILOM SP first-level booter (referred to in this procedure as U-Boot) is intact. Follow documented procedures to connect to the SP serial port, apply power to the system, and observe the initial ILOM boot messages.
See the Sun Fire X4600 and Sun Fire X4600 M2 Server Installation Guide 819-4341 for details.
2. Enter the ILOM SP U-Boot command interpreter with xyzzy.
When the message, Booting linux in 2 seconds... is displayed, during ILOM initial boot, type xyzzy to enter the U-Boot command interpreter.
Set the U-Boot environment variable, bootretry, to -1 to temporarily disable automatic reboot:
4. Configure the network for TFTP access.
a. Copy the ILOM SP firmware image to a TFTP server that is accessible on the same IP subnet as the ILOM SP network port.
b. Set the IP addresses for the ILOM SP and the TFTP server IP address by setting the ethaddr and serverip U-Boot variables (the following IP addresses are examples).
set ipaddr 10.0.0.13set serverip 10.0.0.14
5. Use the U-Boot tftp command to download the ILOM firmware image (the following image file name is an example).
tftp 100000 ilom.x4600m2-1.1.1.ima
Note - If the TFTP server or filename is incorrect, you might need to enter ^C to halt the tftp command, then repeat this recovery procedure. |
Be sure that the complete flash image is actually downloaded successfully before proceeding. You should see a message similar to:
=> tftp 100000 r15028.rom.imaUsing FCC1 ETHERNET device
TFTP from server 10.6.154.8; our IP address is 10.6.154.99Filename ?r10644.rom.ima?.Load address: 0x100000Loading:######################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################doneBytes transferred = 13107200 (c80000 hex)
6. Confirm that the download succeeded:
a. Confirm that the tftp command output ends with
Bytes transferred = ByteCount
b. Use the md command and confirm that its output displays strings from the beginning of the firmware image file. For example:
=> tftp 100000 r15028.rom.imaUsing FCC1 ETHERNET deviceTFTP from server 10.6.154.8; our IP address is 10.6.154.99Filename ?r10644.rom.ima?.Load address: 0x100000Loading:######################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################doneBytes transferred = 13107200 (c80000 hex)
7. Erase the existing ILOM flash image:
a. Enter the following commands:
=> erase ff200000 ffffffff=> erase fe000000 feffffff
A series of dots will appear, indicating the progress of the erasure.
b. If a failure occurs, retry the erase command repeatedly until it succeeds.
8. Program the new ILOM firmware image:
a. Use the U-Boot cp.b command to copy the new ILOM firmware image from the download location at 100000 to ff380000, until end address ffffffff.
=> cp.b 100000 ff380000 ffffffffCopy to Flash .............................................................................................................................................done
b. Use the fmh command to verify the new ILOM firmware image.
Before resetting, make sure the copy succeeded, using the fmh command, which should display firmware sections. For example:
=> fmhListing FMH ModulesFlash Size : 32768 KBErase Size : 64 KBSector Count : 512FMH Located at 0xff380000 of Size 0x00020000Name : graspVer : 1.0Type : 0x0002Flags : 0x0000Size : 0x00000061Location: 0xff380040LoadAddr: 0xffffffffCheckSum: Not Computed--------------------------------------------------FMH Located at 0xff3a0000 of Size 0x00120000Name : sysbiosVer : 1.31Type : 0x0000Flags : 0x0100Size : 0x00100000Location: 0xff3c0000Flash Upgrading Your Server to Release 1.1 13LoadAddr: 0xffffffffCheckSum: Valid--------------------------------------------------FMH Located at 0xff4c0000 of Size 0x000c0000Name : osimageVer : 1.0Type : 0x0006Flags : 0x0119Size : 0x000ac9c8Location: 0xff4c0040LoadAddr: 0x00c00000CheckSum: Valid...1
9. Reset the ILOM service processor.
Once you are certain that the service processor firmware image has been recovered, you can restart the service processor with the reset command.
Note - This manual ILOM SP recovery process does not reflash the system BIOS. Repeat the firmware upgrade process, using the ILOM GUI or CLI procedures as described in How to Flash Upgrade Your Server to Release 1.2 and the Integrated Lights-Out Manager Administration Guide, 819-1160. |
Be sure to reset your service processor and BIOS configuration settings as needed, because they might be lost during this recovery.
For this release, you must perform the following updates:
1. Download the FW11640_B61404.iso image file and burn it to a CD.
2. Boot from the CD you just created, then select option 1 from the list that is displayed:
Press 1 to update
Press 2 to exit to DOS
The service processor (SP) and BIOS software and the LSI firmware versions might be updated in each new release of Sun Fire X4600 M2 software. Names and version strings for these components are listed in TABLE 1 (Release 1.2), TABLE 2 (Release 1.1), TABLE 3 (Release 1.0.1), and TABLE 4 (Release 1.0).
Copyright © 2007, Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.