The Live Firmware update feature of the SPARC T8 series servers supports updating the Sun System Firmware while the SPARC host is powered on. Sun System Firmware is an image that includes firmware for the SP and Oracle ILOM, and the server's host components. The SP and Oracle ILOM firmware update goes into immediate effect. However, the host components update is delayed until the affected host is power cycled. Because Oracle ILOM can be updated while the host is powered on, this feature reduces the total system down time.
Before You Begin
See Display the System Firmware Versions to determine firmware versions you have currently.
See Downloading System Firmware Updates to obtain the firmware updates.
If you used the Oracle Solaris pkg command, the firmware update is located in /var/firmware/system/T8-n/sysfw9-8/pnnnnnnn_nnnx/Firmware/Sun_System_Firmware where the string of characters and numbers varies according to the firmware update.
For information about performing firmware updates using the web interface, see Update the Server SP or CMM Firmware Image in Oracle ILOM Administrator’s Guide for Configuration and Maintenance Firmware Release 4.0.x.
-> load -source protocol://username:password@server_ip/path_to_image/image.pkg
The value for protocol can be: http, https, ftp, tftp, sftp, or scp.
For some protocols, you can specify the username and password of the user account to access the server where the firmware image is located. See Supported File Transfer Methods in Oracle ILOM Administrator’s Guide for Configuration and Maintenance Firmware Release 4.0.x.
For example, if the Sun System Firmware image can be accessed through an http server with IP address 198.51.100.123 in a directory called fw-downloads:
-> load -source http://198.51.100.123/fw-downloads/Sun_System_Firmware-x_x_x.pkg NOTE: The host is powered on; HOST firmware will be updated automatically when the host is restarted.
If the host is powered off you will not see this note.
The following prompts display.
Are you sure you want to load the specified file (y/n)? y Preserve existing configuration (y/n)? y
The host does not reboot if it was powered on when the firmware updates were applied. Host component updates are deferred until the next time the host is powered off and on.
If the host was powered off when firmware was updated, the firmware updates are put in effect the next time you power on the host.