Power7 System Firmware

System firmware changes that affect certain systems

• On systems running IBM i partitions at IBM i V6R1 or V7R1 at less than TR5, a problem was fixed for IBM i partitions failing to boot with SRC B600690B.  If the IBMi partition is running, a DLPAR add of I/O may fail.  This problem was introduced with FW780.80 and is present in FW780.82 and always happens at these levels.  The problem can be resolved by moving up to OS IBM i 7.1 TR5 or later level, if the update to the fixed firmware level is not wanted. 
  For more information, see the following IBM Tech Note:  https://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=nas8N1022482
  

Response for Recent Security Vulnerabilities

• In response to recently reported security vulnerabilities, this firmware update is being released to address Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number CVE-2017-5715 for IBM Power 795 (9119-FHB). In addition, Operating System updates are available to mitigate the CVE-2017-5753 and CVE-2017-5754 security issues.
  

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• A problem was fixed for an intermittent core dump of netsCommonMsgServer on the service processor with a serviceable callout for SRC B181EF88.  This problem can be triggered by brief network outages that cause the HMC to disconnect and reconnect to the service processor, causing race conditions in the HMC session shutdowns.
• A problem was fixed for an invalid date from the service processor causing the customer date and time to go to the Epoch value (01/01/1970) without a warning or chance for a correction.  With the fix,  the first IPL attempted on an invalid date will be rejected with a message alerting the user to set the time correctly in the service processor.  If the warning is ignored and the date/time is not corrected, the next IPL attempt will complete to the OS with the time reverted to the Epoch time and date.  This problem is very rare but it has been known to occur on service processor replacements when the repair step to set the date and time on the new service processor was inadvertently skipped by the service representative.
• A  problem was fixed for incorrect low affinity scores for a partition reported from the HMC "lsmemopt" command when a partition has filled an entire drawer.  A low score indicates the placement is poor but in this case the placement is actually good.  More information on affinity scores for partitions and the Dynamic Platform Optimizer can be found at the IBM Knowledge Center: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/9119-MME/p8hat/p8hat_dpoovw.htm.
• A problem was fixed for spurious loggings of SRCs A7004715 and A7001730 for system VPD errors that did not reflect actual problems in the system Vital Product Data (VPD) card.  With the fix,  the VPD card  SRCs are now reported only after a certain error threshold is achieved to ensure that replacement of the VPD card will help resolve the VPD problems.
• A problem was fixed for the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI) that prevented a HMC using the enhanced GUI from connecting to the power frame Bulk Power Controller (BPC) service processor's ASMI.  An Internal Server Error message would result for the ASMI login panel.  This error was introduced in ASMI in FW780.20 and only happens for a HMC running in enhanced GUI mode that is at  V8R8.5.0 SP3 or later levels.  The circumvention is to use the failing HMC in classic GUI mode, if possible, or for HMC level V8R8.7.0 (which only has the enhanced GUI mode) to have HMC PTF MH01706 installed.
  

System firmware changes that affect certain systems

• On systems with mirrored memory running IBM i partitions, a problem was fixed for memory fails in the partition that also caused the system to crash.  The system failure will occur any time that IBM i partition memory towards the beginning of the partition's assigned memory fails.  With the fix, the memory failure is isolated to the impacted partition, leaving the rest of the system unaffected.
• A  problem was fixed for a Power Enterprise Pool (PEP) system losing its assigned processor and memory resources after an IPL of the system.  This is an intermittent problem caused by a small timing window that makes it possible for the server to not get the IPL-time assignment of resources from the HMC.  If this problem occurs, it can be corrected by the HMC to recover the pool without needing another IPL of the system.
  

Concurrent hot add/repair maintenance (CHARM) firmware fixes

• DEFERRED:  A problem was fixed for a I/O performance slow-down that can occur after a concurrent repair of a GX bus I/O adapter with a Feature Code of #1808, #1816, #1914, #EN22, #EN23, or #EN25.  A re-IPL of the system after the concurrent repair operation corrects the I/O performance issue.  This fix requires an IPL of the system to take effect.

System firmware changes that affect certain systems

• HIPER/Pervasive:  On systems using PowerVM firmware, a performance problem was fixed that may affect shared processor partitions where there is a mixture of dedicated and shared processor partitions with virtual IO connections, such as virtual ethernet or Virtual IO Server (VIOS) hosting, between them.  In high availability cluster environments this problem may result in a split brain scenario.
  

System firmware changes that affect certain systems

• HIPER/Pervasive:  A problem was fixed in PowerVM where the effect of the problem is non-deterministic but may include an undetected corruption of data, although IBM test has not been able to make this condition occur. This problem is only possible if VIOS (Virtual I/O Server) version 2.2.3.x or later is installed and the following statement is true:  A Shared Ethernet Adapter (SEA) with fail over enabled is configured on the VIOS.
  

• HIPER/Pervasive:  A security problem was fixed in the OpenSSL (Secure Socket Layer) protocol that allowed clients and servers, via a specially crafted handshake packet, to use weak keying material for communication.  A man-in-the-middle attacker could use this flaw to decrypt and modify traffic between the management console and the service processor.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number for this problem is CVE-2014-0224.
• HIPER/Pervasive:  A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL for a buffer overflow in the Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) when handling invalid DTLS packet fragments.  This could be used to execute arbitrary code on the service processor.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number for this problem is CVE-2014-0195.
• HIPER/Pervasive:  Multiple security problems were fixed in the way that OpenSSL handled read and write buffers when the SSL_MODE_RELEASE_BUFFERS mode was enabled to prevent denial of service.  These could cause the service processor to reset or unexpectedly drop connections to the management console when processing certain SSL commands.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue numbers for these problems are CVE-2010-5298 and CVE-2014-0198.
• HIPER/Pervasive:  A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL to prevent a denial of service when handling certain Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) ServerHello requests. A specially crafted DTLS handshake packet could cause the service processor to reset.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number for this problem is CVE-2014-0221.
• HIPER/Pervasive:  A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL to prevent a denial of service by using an exploit of a null pointer de-reference during anonymous Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman (ECDH) key exchange.  A specially crafted handshake packet could cause the service processor to reset.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number for this problem is CVE-2014-3470.

• HIPER/Pervasive:  A  security problem was fixed in the OpenSSL Montgomery ladder implementation for the ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) to protect sensitive information from being obtained with a flush and reload cache side-channel attack to recover ECDSA nonces from the service processor.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2014-0076.  The stolen ECDSA nonces could be used to decrypt the SSL sessions and compromise the Hardware Management Console (HMC) access password to the service processor.  Therefore, the HMC access password for the managed system should be changed after applying this fix.
• HIPER/Pervasive:  A  security problem was fixed in the OpenSSL Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) to not allow Heartbeat Extension packets to trigger a buffer over-read to steal private keys for the encrypted sessions on the service processor.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2014-0160 and it is also known as the heartbleed vulnerability.  The stolen private keys could be used to decrypt the SSL sessions and and compromise the Hardware Management Console (HMC) access password to the service processor.  Therefore, the HMC access password for the managed system should be changed after applying this fix.

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• HIPER/Non-Pervasive:  A problem was fixed for a potential silent data corruption issue that may occur when a Live Partition Mobility (LPM) operation is performed from a system (source system) running a firmware level earlier than AH780_040 or AM780_040 to a system (target system) running AH780_040 or AM780_040.