8.8.1 Preparing for InfiniBand Network Fabric Switch Firmware Updates

You must follow a specific order when updating the InfiniBand Network Fabric switches.

• If a spine switch is present in the rack, it needs to be updated first.
• If a spine switch is not in the rack, then update the switch running the subnet manager first.
• If the subnet manager is not running on the switches, then perform the update in any order.

To update the InfiniBand Network Fabric switches, the switch firmware must be at release 1.3.3-2 or later. If the switch firmware is at an earlier release, then update the firmware to release 1.3.3-2 using the instructions in My Oracle Support document KB153930.

1. Log in as the root user to an Oracle Exadata database server that has root user SSH access to the switches.
   The database server must be on the same InfiniBand Network Fabric network as the switches.
2. Use the version command to determine the version of the software the InfiniBand Network Fabric switch is running.

   [root@dbm01-ibs0 ~]# version
   
   SUN DCS 36p version: 2.1.8-1
   Build time: Sep 18 2015 10:26:47
   SP board info:
   Manufacturing Date: 2015.07.01
   Serial Number: "NCDLD0049"
   Hardware Revision: 0x0200
   Firmware Revision: 0x0000
   BIOS version: SUN0R100
   BIOS date: 06/22/2010
   

3. Download the appropriate patch file to the database server.
   Refer to My Oracle Support document KB153930 for patch information.
4. Uncompress the update.
   The files are uncompressed to the patch_release.date directory.
5. Create a file listing all the InfiniBand Network Fabric switches that need to be updated, with one switch per line.

   Use the command ibswitches to identify the switches in your rack. Note that switches from Engineered Systems other than Oracle Exadata might be visible on the same fabric but should probably not be updated at this time.

   The following is an example of the file constructed after running the ibswitches command:

   [root@dm01 ]# cat ibswitches.lst
   myibswitch-01
   myibswitch-02

   Note:

   If no file name is provided, then the command runs on all InfiniBand Network Fabric switches discovered from this host by running ibswitches command.
6. Change to the patch_release.date directory.
7. Run the prerequisite check.

   [root@dm01 ]# ./patchmgr --ibswitches ibswitches.lst --upgrade --ibswitch_precheck [--force] [--unkey]
   

   Note:

   Starting with Oracle Exadata System Software release 19.3.0, the patchmgr command uses -- instead of a single hyphen before keywords.

   The --unkey option removes passwordless SSH access to the InfiniBand Network Fabric switches before exiting.

   The --force option overrides failures in the InfiniBand Network Fabric topology and connectivity from the servers to the switches. This does not affect the upgrade of the switch.

If the output from the command shows overall status is SUCCESS, then proceed with the upgrade. If the output from the command shows overall status is FAIL, then review the error summary in the output to determine which checks failed, and then correct the errors. After correcting all the errors, rerun the prerequisite checks until it is successful.