IBM Power Systems Scale-out LC and Hyperconverged CS Server Firmware
Applies to: S821LC (8001-12C), S822LC (8001-22C), CS821 (8005-12N),
and CS822 (8005-22N)
This document provides information about the installation of Licensed Machine or Licensed Internal Code, which is sometimes referred to generically as microcode or firmware.
This package provides firmware for Power Systems Scale-out LC S821LC (8001-12C) and S822LC (8001-22C) servers and the IBM Hyperconverged Systems powered by Nutanix CS servers of CS821(8005-12N) and CS822 (8005-22N).
The firmware level in this package is:
•V2.20
There are the following images:
.pnor (Host image)
.bin (BMC image)
pUpdate (tool binary)
Details on the package binaries are included in section 3.1.
This section specifies the "Minimum ipmitool Code Level" required by the System Firmware to perform firmware installations and managing the system. Open Power requires ipmitool level v1.8.15 to execute correctly on the V1.00 firmware.
Verify your ipmitool level on your linux workstation using the following commands:
bash-4.1$ ipmitool -V
ipmitool version 1.8.15
If you need to update or add impitool to your Linux workstation , you can compile ipmitool (current level 1.8.15) for Linux as follows from the Sourceforge:
1.1.1 Download impitool tar from http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/ to your linux system
1.1.2 Extract tarball on linux system
1.1.3 cd to top-level directory
1.1.4 ./configure
1.1.5 make
1.1.6 ipmitool will be under src/ipmitool
You may also get the ipmitool package directly from your workstation linux packages such as Ubuntu 14.04.3:
sudo apt-get install ipmitool
The BMC Web GUI is a web-based application that works within a browser. Supported browser levels are shown below with Chrome being the preferred browser:
•Google Chrome Version 46.0.2490.71 m
•Mozilla Firefox version 41.0.3
For specific fix level information on key components of IBM Power Systems servers and Linux operating systems, please refer to the documentation in the IBM Knowledge Center.
Here are the links for the LC 8001 servers:
http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER8/p8hdx/8001_12c_landing.htm.
http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER8/p8hdx/8001_22c_landing.htm.
Here are the links for the Hyperconverged CS 8005 servers powered by Nutanix:
http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER8/p8hdx/8005_12n_landing.htm
http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER8/p8hdx/8005_22n_landing.htm.
Downgrading firmware from any given release level to an earlier release level is not recommended.
If you feel that it is necessary to downgrade the firmware on your system to an earlier release level, please contact your next level of support.
Concurrent Firmware Updates not available for LC and CS servers.
Concurrent system firmware update is not supported on LC 8001 and CS 8005 servers.
The V2.00 and later firmware for LC and CS Servers is now less verbose during boot - only error-level messages are printed during Petitboot bootloader initialization. This means that there will be fewer messages printed as the system boots.
Additionally, the Petitboot user interface is started earlier in the boot process. This means that you will be presented with the user interface sooner, but it may still take time, potentially up to 30 seconds, for the user interface to be populated with boot options as storage and network hardware is being initialized. During this time, Petitboot will show the status message "Info: Waiting for device discovery". When Petitboot device discovery is completed, the following status message will be shown "Info: Connected to pb-discover!".
Use the following examples as a reference to determine whether your installation will be concurrent or disruptive.
For the LC 8001 server systems, the installation of system firmware is always disruptive.
The xxx.pnor file updates the primary side of the PNOR. The yyy.bin updates the primary side of the BMC only. The golden sides are unchanged.
Filename | Size | Checksum |
P8DTU20180105_IBM_prod_sign.pnor | 33554560 | f831c7b3a4ff9f633a5007d01563bd74 |
SMT_P8_127.bin | 33554432 | fe4551fe14196f0e8a838656af3acbc8 |
pUpdate | 1058520 | 1ee81d8bdc4fd17339b4a85003ac2009 |
Note: The Checksum can be found by running the Linux/Unix/AIX md5sum command against the file (all 32 characters of the checksum are listed), ie: md5sum xxx.pnor.
After a successful update to this firmware level, the PNOR components and BMC should be at the following levels. The ipmitool "fru" command can be used to display FRU ID 47 and the ipmitool "mc info" command can be used to display the BMC level.
Note: FRU information for the PNOR level does not show the updated levels via the fru command until the system has been booted once at the updated level.
PNOR firmware levels from FRU ID 47 inventory list for driver:
FRU Device Description : System Firmware (ID 47)
System Firmware:
Product Name : OpenPOWER Firmware
Product Version : open-power-IBM-P8DTU-V2.00.GA2-20180105-prod
Product Extra : op-build-4059438
Product Extra : hostboot-7fdfb37
Product Extra : occ-301b535
Product Extra : skiboot-5.4.2-2a21b57
Product Extra : linux-4.4.24-openpower1-48c3582
Product Extra : petitboot-v1.4.0-eef0f918
Product Extra : p8dtu-xml-04e8a01
BMC Level:
Display BMC firmware level using the "ipmitool mc info | grep Firmware" command:
Firmware Revision : 01.27
V2.20 | |
V2.20
03/07/18 | Impact: Availability Severity: SPE
The PNOR for this service pack has the firmware fixes for Spectre/Meltdown enabled (CVE-2017-5715, CVE-2017-5753, and CVE-2017-5754). If you need to run without the Spectre/Meltdown mitigation enabled, the 20170512 PNOR provided in the V2.10 level on Fix Central can be installed in conjunction with the BMC V1.27 level from this service pack.
New features and functions
Support was added for the user to be able to create a BMC group name via LDAP. This provides a BMC login privilege by group name.
Support was added for a new alert message that occurs on the BMC web gui when a disk, power supply, or a fan is unplugged. When an event is logged against one of the associated sensors, the alert message is sent.
Support for a 2 MB IPMI SOL console data capture and download.
Support for "Product Extra Information" for FRU reading on the BMC GUI web.
System firmware changes that affect all systems
A problem was fixed for RHEL7.3 GUI mode having a large square cursor via the BMC iKVM console. This over-sized cursor can interfere with normal operations on the screen by blocking the view of task options on pull-down menus.
A problem was fixed for a duplicate sensor id for occ_active and boot_count which shared a device id of "0x09". This caused one of the sensors to be absent from the sensor device tree and also caused an OPAL error log: "[ 84.176082494,3] DT: dt_attach_root failed, duplicate sensor@9". There was no other adverse impact for this problem other than the missing sensor information. With the fix, the boot count sensor has a new device code of "0x0A".
A problem was fixed for an IPMI SOL Console drop during a PNOR firmware update. There is a log message "SOL session closed by BMC", but there is no impact on the system.
A problem was fixed for an IPMI DCMI "Get Power Reading" command average reading being inaccurate.
A problem was fixed for the FRU information for MfgDatetime which was not displayed correctly.
A problem was fixed for "SENSOR_ID" not being consistent with the sensor name in email alerts.
A problem was fixed for opening the Java iKVM program on a Mac OS X client system.
A problem was fixed in the BMC NTP support to protect against a possible denial-of-service attack in the NTP processing of a query. This is for protection against the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) number CVE-2016-7434.
A problem was fixed for an erroneous voltage reading at an empty CPU socket.
A problem was fixed for iKVM not showing the Hostboot and OPAL boot progress.
A problem was fixed for the BMC not requesting an OCC reset if the OCC is in Safe mode but the "OCC Active" sensor is still enabled. With the fix, after sixty seconds of the OCC being in Safe mode, the OCC reset will be requested regardless of the state of the "OCC Active" sensor.
A problem was fixed for the On-Chip Controller (OCC) dropping to Safe mode during BMC communication failures when an OCC reset was requested.
A problem was fixed for the OpenPOWER logo being pixelated (a very low-resolution image) in the Java iKVM viewer.
A problem was fixed for a SMASH console hang from the BMC SSH login: Start the SMASH console by typing "start /system1/sol1". Note that the command is unresponsive, and does not show a login prompt. With the fix, this sequence is responsive and shows the same console as the IPMI SOL console. |
V2.11
01/12/18 | Impact: New Severity: Available
New features and functions In response to recently reported security vulnerabilities, this firmware update is being released to address Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue numbers, CVE-2017-5715, CVE-2017-5753 and CVE-2017-5754. Operating System updates are required in conjunction with this FW level for CVE-2017-5753 and CVE-2017-5754.
|
V2.10 | Impact: New Severity: Available New features and functions Support for resonant clocking was enabled to reduce power consumption of the processors for an approximate 10W per processor socket savings. The Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) installation process was enhanced to provide more status log information and to show percentage-based download progress information. Support was added for a On-Chip Controller (OCC) Soft User Power Cap. Previously, if the User Power Cap was being exceeded and could not be maintained, the OCC placed the system into Safe mode (a power mode with reduced processor frequencies). With the Soft User Power Cap feature, the Safe mode is not used when the User Power Cap is exceeded. Instead, the OCC will log an error and continue to try to maintain the User Power Cap. System firmware changes that affect all systems A problem was fixed for a missing device discovery message and overly verbose output messages during the boot. It is now less verbose during the boot - only error-level messages are printed during Petitboot bootloader initialization. This means that there will be fewer messages printed as the system boots. Additionally, the Petitboot user interface is started earlier in the boot process. This means that the user will be presented with the user interface sooner, but it may still take time, potentially up to 30 seconds, for the user interface to be populated with boot options as storage and network hardware is being initialized. During this time, Petitboot will show the status message "Info: Waiting for device discovery". When Petitboot device discovery is completed, the following status message will be shown "Info: Connected to pb-discover!". System firmware changes that affect certain systems On systems with maximum memory configurations (where every DIMM slot is populated - size of DIMM does not matter), a problem has been fixed for systems losing performance and going into Safe mode (a power mode with reduced processor frequencies intended to protect the system from over-heating and excessive power consumption). This happened because of On-Chip Controller (OCC) time out errors when collecting Analog Power Subsystem Sweep (APSS) data, used by the OCC to tune the processor frequency. This problem occurs more frequently on systems that are running heavy workloads. Recovery from Safe mode back to normal performance can be done with a reboot of the system.
|
V2.00
12/16/16 | Impact: New Severity: Available
New features and functions
Support for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3 OS as a OPAL bare-metal install. For more information on the features delivered with RHEL7.3, see the Red Hat information portal: https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en/red-hat-enterprise-linux/.
Support for a OPAL raw console to receive output from the PowerPC boot EPAPR (Embedded Power Architecture Platform Requirements) wrapper. This allows decompression failures inside the wrapper caused by data corruption to be reported to the user.
Support for logging the following user activities on the BMC: 1) user add/delete 2) user password changed 3) Login web 4) Logout web 5) Launch iKVM 6) Close iKVM 7) Reset iKVM 8) BIOS FW is updated 9) BMC FW is updated 10) Event log is cleared
Support for BMC password management for password expiration date and user password lockout with the following variable controls: 1) Bad Password Threshold - integer 2) Invalid password disable - yes or no 3) Attempt Count Reset Interval (seconds) - integer 4) User Lockout Interval (seconds) - integer
Support for power-saving nap mode while in Skiboot, reducing power consumption during the boot.
Support for filtering the OCC Active Device Disabled Asserted SELs asserted during power off and OCC Active Device Enabled SELs asserted during power on as these do not represent a problem in the system but are part of normal operations. Here are the OCC SELs that are no longer reported during power off: 1 | 10/13/2016 | 13:53:23 | Processor OCC Active 1 | Device Enabled | Deasserted 2 | 10/13/2016 | 13:53:23 | Processor OCC Active 1 | Device Disabled | Asserted 3 | 10/13/2016 | 13:53:23 | Processor OCC Active 2 | Device Enabled | Deasserted 4 | 10/13/2016 | 13:53:23 | Processor OCC Active 2 | Device Disabled | Asserted
And here are the OCC SELs that are no longer reported during the power on: 5 | 10/13/2016 | 13:54:45 | Processor OCC Active 1 | Device Disabled | Deasserted 6 | 10/13/2016 | 13:54:45 | Processor OCC Active 1 | Device Enabled | Asserted 7 | 10/13/2016 | 13:54:45 | Processor OCC Active 2 | Device Disabled | Deasserted 8 | 10/13/2016 | 13:54:45 | Processor OCC Active 2 | Device Enabled | Asserted
Support for a new parameter in the pUpdate procedure to specify that SDR settings should be preserved on the PNOR firmware update. The default for the preservation of SDR settings in pUpdate was also changed to "not preserve" from "preserve" as this value is needed for the firmware update to V2.0 to work correctly.
System firmware changes that affect all systems
A problem was fixed for a critical hardware guard causing an infinite reboot loop and a flood of SELs. With the fix, the number of reboot attempts in the retry loop is limited to 10, assuring that the failing SELs are available for debugging the boot problem.
A problem was fixed for the IPMI Serial Over LAN (SOL) console to the Petitboot user interface for the left and right arrow movements. When editing the command line for the kernel, the user could not go to the start of the line and then go forward one character at a time.
A problem was fixed for a kexec-hardboot reboot of the system that caused USB devices to be lost. A system power cycle is needed to recover the USB devices when this error occurs.
A problem was fixed for the shutdown of PCI devices that was causing spurious reboots of the system for a power off. The logical PCI devices are now removed during the shutdown.
A problem was fixed for failures that happen when multiple Hypervisor Virtual Console (HVC) are active at the same time. On machines with more than one HVC console, any console after the first failed to register an interrupt handler since all consoles shared the same IRQ number.
A problem was fixed for fundamental PCI resets at boot time causing the PCI adapters to not be usable in the Linux OS. No errors occur in the skiboot but the adapters are configurable once the OS is reached.
A problem was fixed for time-out errors during the power off of PCI slots with " Timeout powering off slot ... FIRENZE-PCI: Wrong state 00000000 on slot" error message during a power off of the system.
A problem was fixed for the system remaining in "safe" mode after an On-Chip Controller (OCC) reset. In "safe" mode, the system is running at reduced processor frequencies, affecting system performance. The OCC reset is an error recovery command that can be requested by the BMC or OPAL for certain OCC errors.
A problem was fixed for the error recovery on a DIMM fault occurring newly installed DIMMs that can cause unnecessary DIIMM callouts and deconfiguration during the IPL or cause a IPL hang loop at step 13.10 with no bad DIMMs identified. With the fix, only the bad DIMM is called out and the IPL is successful.
A problem was fixed for a Non-recoverable processor error on the I2C master with SEL "Processor #0x0e | Transition to Non-recoverable | Asserted" during the IPL.
A problem was fixed for a security vulnerability in the DropBear SSH server on the BMC to prevent an unauthenticated remote user from executing arbitrary code with root privileges. This was done by exploiting improper handling of string format specifiers in user names and host arguments. This Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) number is CVE-2016-7406.
A problem was fixed for a security vulnerability in the DropBear SSH server on the BMC for an improper handling of a OpenSSH key file that could allow an unauthorized to execute arbitrary code with root privileges. This Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) number is CVE-2016-7407.
A problem was fixed for a security vulnerability in the DropBear SSH dbclient on the BBC when handling the "-m" or "-c" arguments in scripts. An unauthenticated, remote user can exploit this, via a specially crafted script, to execute arbitrary code with root privileges. This Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) number is CVE-2016-7408.
A problem was fixed for a security vulnerability in the DropBear SSH server on the BMC when compiled with the DEBUG_TRACE option and then run with the -v switch. A local user can exploit this to disclose process memory. This Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) number is CVE-2016-7409.
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V1.10
10/04/16 | Impact: New Severity: Available
New features and functions
Support for populating the host device tree with tracking information from the VPD. This includes, but is not limited to: system serial/part/manufacturer number, processor serial/part/manufacturer number, and DIMM serial/part/manufacturer number. This feature also populates the location code set in the system XML.
System firmware changes that affect all systems
A problem was fixed for the reporting of DIMM failures when two DIMMs have failed. With the fix, the second DIMM is able to be called out along with the first DIMM failure, instead of just the first DIMM failure.
A problem was fixed for a system IPL failure due to DRAM training issues for a faulty DIMM that does not log any SEL or eSEL records for the failure. The only signature of the fault is that it fails at ISTEP 13.10.
A problem was fixed for Petitboot adding unwanted kernel command-line options if no kernel arguments are provided on the OS boot. The unwanted options added were "console=hvc0 console=tty1" which breaks a SOL boot of the OS installer images.
A problem was fixed in the BMC login for a possible security issue.
Security problems were fixed in the BMC web interface for OWASP ZAP reported problems in the X-FRAME-OPTIONS; the X-CONTENT-TYPE_OPTIONS; and in the Cache control for the HTTP header. |
V1.00
09/09/16 | Impact: New Severity: New
New features and functions for MTM 8001-12C and 8001-22C
GA Level |
OS levels supported by the LC 8001 and CS 8005 servers:
–RHEL 7.3
–RHEL 7.3 / RHEV
–RHEL 7.2
–RHEL 7.2 / RHEV
–Ubuntu 14.04.04
–Ubuntu 16.04
–Ubuntu 16.04 / KVM
–Cent OS
IBM Power LC 8001 and CS 8005 servers supports Linux which provides a UNIX like implementation across many computer architectures. Linux supports almost all of the Power System I/O and the configurator verifies support on order. For more information about the software that is available on IBM Power Systems, see the Linux on IBM Power Systems website:
http://www.ibm.com/systems/power/software/linux/index.html
For the Hyperconverged CS 8005 servers, the OS hypervisor is Nutanix AHV running on Nutanix Acropolis with Prism Starter (includes Prism Central). Nutanix Acropolis is an operating system (AOS) for the Nutanix hyper-converged infrastructure platform at level 5.2 or later. It contains a number of data services and features for data protection, space efficiency, scalability, automated data tiering and security. Acropolis comes with its own built-in hypervisor called AHV; the name was derived from the words Acropolis Hypervisor. Nutanix Prism is an end-to-end management solution for virtualized data center environments that streamlines and automates common work flows, eliminating the need for multiple management solutions across data center operations.
The Linux operating system is an open source, cross-platform OS. It is supported on every Power Systems server IBM sells. Linux on Power Systems is the only Linux infrastructure that offers both scale-out and scale-up choices. One supported version of Linux on the IBM Power LC 8001 and CS 8005 servers is Ubuntu Server 16.04 for IBM POWER8. For more information about Ubuntu Server for Ubuntu for POWER8 see the following website:
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/server/power8
Another supported version of Linux on the Power LC 8001 and CS 8005 servers is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 and later releases, in the BE and LE modes. For additional questions about the availability of this release and supported Power servers, consult the Red Hat Hardware Catalog at https://hardware.redhat.com.
For information about the PowerLinux Community, see the following website:
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/group/tpl
For information about the features and external devices that are supported by Linux, see this website:
http://www.ibm.com/systems/power/software/linux/index.html
Use one of the following commands at the Linux command prompt to determine the current Linux level:
•cat /proc/version
•uname -a
The output string from the command will provide the Linux version level.
The opal-prd package on the Linux system collects the OPAL Processor Recovery Diagnostics messages to log file /var/log/syslog. It is recommended that this package be installed if it is not already present as it will help with maintaining the system processors by alerting the users to processor maintenance when needed.
On Ubuntu Linux, perform command dpkg -l "opal-prd". The output shows whether the package is installed on your system by marking it with ii (installed) and un (not installed).
This package provides a daemon to load and run the OpenPower firmware's Processor Recovery Diagnostics binary. This is responsible for run-time maintenance of Power hardware.
If the package is not installed on your system, the following command can be run on Ubuntu to install it:
sudo apt-get install opal-prd
On Red Hat Linux, perform command "rpm -qa | grep -i opal-prd ". The command output indicates the package is installed on your system if the rpm for opal-prd is found and displayed. This package provides a daemon to load and run the OpenPower firmware's Processor Recovery Diagnostics binary. This is responsible for run-time maintenance of Power hardware. If the package is not installed on your system, the following command can be run on Red Hat to install it:
sudo yum update opal-prd
Use the ipmtool "fru" command or the BMC Web GUI FRU option to look at product details of FRU 47.
ipmitool -I lanplus -H <bmc host IP address> -P admin -U ADMIN fru print 47
Follow the instructions on Fix Central. You must read and agree to the license agreement to obtain the firmware packages.
The updating and upgrading of system firmware depends on several factors, such as the current firmware that is installed, and what operating systems is running on the system.
These scenarios and the associated installation instructions are comprehensively outlined in the firmware section of Fix Central, found at the following website:
http://www.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/
Any hardware failures should be resolved before proceeding with the firmware updates to help insure the system will not be running degraded after the updates.
The pUpdate utility is provided with the firmware update files from IBM Fix Central. It can be used to perform in-band (from the host OS), in-band update recovery, and out-of-band updates by selecting either the "-i usb" , "-i bt" or "-i lan" parameters, respectively on the command invocation. The code update needs to be done in two steps: 1) Update the BMC firmware and 2) Update the CEC PNOR for the hostboot and the OPAL components. It is recommended that the BMC be updated first unless otherwise specified in the firmware install instructions.
Before using the pUpdate command on the host, make sure that the ipmi driver is loaded in the kernel and the ipmi service is started.
Note: For updates that use the "usb" or "bt" pUpdate option, you must use the root user ID and password to log in to the host operating system. After you log in to the host operating system, ensure that the IPMI service is activated.
# chkconfig ipmi on
# service ipmi start
For more information about activating the IPMI service, see the OpenIPMI Driver: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER8/p8eih/p8eih_ipmi_open_driver.htm
For in-band update, use the following "-i usb" invocation of pUpdate:
BMC update: "pUpdate -f bmc.bin -i usb", where bmc.bin is the name and location of the BMC image file.
PNOR update: "pUpdate -pnor pnor.bin -i usb", where pnor.bin is the name and location of the PNOR image file.
If the in-band update fails on the BMC, use the recovery option with the Block Transfer (bt) invocation of pUpdate:
BMC update: "pUpdate -f bmc.bin -i bt -r y" where bmc.bin is the name and location of the BMC image file.
PNOR update:" pUpdate -pnor pnor.bin -i bt " where pnor.bin is the name and location of the PNOR image file.
For more information on BMC recovery steps, refer to the following link in the IBM Knowledge Center:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER8/p8eis/p8eis_console_problem.htm
If the host is not booted, a network connection can be made to the BMC and an out-of-band update done with the following LAN invocation from a Linux companion system:
BMC update: " pUpdate -f bmc.bin -i lan -h xx.xx.xx.xx -u ADMIN -p ADMIN -r y" where bmc.bin is the name and location of the BMC image file, xx.xx.xx.xx is the IP address of the BMC.
PNOR update: "pUpdate -pnor pnor.bin -i lan -h xx.xx.xx.xx -u ADMIN -p ADMIN " where pnor.bin is the name and location of the PNOR image file and xx.xx.xx.xx is the IP address of the BMC.
For more details on how to use the pUpdate utility, refer to the following link:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER8/p8eit/p8eit_update_firmware_pupdate.htm
You can use diagnostic utilities to diagnose adapter problems.
For more details on how to use the diagnostic utilities, refer to the following link:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER8/p8eit/p8eit_diags_kickoff.htm
Open Power requires Source Forge ipmitool level v1.8.15 to execute correctly on the V1.00, V2.00 and later firmware.
Another method to update the system firmware is by using the baseboard management controller (BMC).
The system firmware is a combination of the BMC firmware and the PNOR firmware. To update the system firmware, update both the BMC firmware and the PNOR firmware by using the BMC.
Note: System firmware update from the BMC Web GUI is only supported on Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox browsers.
Complete the following steps to update the BMC firmware:
1. Log in to the BMC by entering the user name and password. Then, press Enter.
2. From the Maintenance list on the BMC dashboard, select Firmware Update.
3. In the Firmware Update window, select Enter Update Mode. Click OK.
4. In the Firmware Upload window, choose the .bin file from your local system folder and click Upload Firmware. Wait for the file to be uploaded. Then, click OK.
5. The existing and new versions of the BMC firmware are displayed. Ensure that the Preserve Configuration check box is selected and the Preserve SDR check box is not selected. Click Start Upgrade.
Note: You cannot perform other activities by using the BMC interface until the firmware update is complete.
6. The upgrade progress of the firmware update is displayed. After the firmware update is complete, the system is restarted.
7. After the restart of the system is complete, verify the firmware revision level in the System menu of the BMC dashboard.
Complete the following steps to update the PNOR firmware:
1. Log in to the BMC by entering the user name and password. Then, press Enter.
2. From the Maintenance list on the dashboard, select PNOR Update.
3. In the PNOR Upload window, choose the .pnor file from your local system folder and click Upload PNOR. Wait for the file to be uploaded. Then, click OK.
4. The existing and new dates of the PNOR firmware are displayed. Click Start Upgrade.
Note: You cannot perform other activities by using the BMC interface until the PNOR update is complete.
5. The progress of the PNOR update is displayed. After the PNOR update is completed, the system must be restarted to finish installation of the new PNOR firmware.
For more information on updating the firmware using the BMC, refer to the following link:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER8/p8eit/p8eit_update_firmware_bmc.htm
System I/O devices have firmware that can be updated. Please see the tables below for minimum level of firmware.
Updated firmware, when released, will include firmware update instructions.
Details regarding the I/O firmware levels for the 8001-12C , 8001-22C 8005-12N, and 8005-22N IBM Power systems can be found in the link below.
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/wikis/home?lang=en#!/wiki/W51a7ffcf4dfd_4b40_9d82_446ebc23c550/page/IBM%20Power%208001-12C%20and%208001-22C%20IO%20Firmware
Here are FAQs for OS related dependencies, limitations, and usage for the LC servers and I/O devices:
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/wikis/home?lang=en#!/wiki/W51a7ffcf4dfd_4b40_9d82_446ebc23c550/page/IBM%20Power%20LC%20readme
All references in the linked documents to 8001-12C apply equally to 8005-12N and all references to 8001-22C apply equally to 8005-22N.
The latest firmware, tools and how-to notes are available here:
ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/driver/P8DTU/
Firmware level for these devices can be checked using OS (Linux) utility “ethtool” as follows:
ethtool -i <device>
System | Part# | Description | Minimum FW level |
8001-12C | AOC-UR-i4XTF | Intel x710/XL710 quad port 10G ( Riser card in system) | 5.03 |
8001-22C | AOC-2UR66-i4XTF | Intel x710/XL710 quad port 10G ( Riser card in system) | 5.03 |
To check the firmware version on this device, use the Linux mvcli tool. The command "mvcli info -o hba" will show information of all 9230 adapters present on machine. Examine the "Firmware version" information to see the current level on the desired adapter.
System | Part# | Description | Minimum FW level |
8001-12C | Marvell 88SE9230 | On-board 8P SATA3 Controller (88SE9230) | 2.3.12.1074 |
8001-22C | Marvell 88SE9230 | On-board 8P SATA3 Controller (88SE9230) | 2.3.12.1074 |
The service processor, or baseboard management controller (BMC), provides a hypervisor and operating system-independent layer that uses the robust error detection and self-healing functions that are built into the POWER8 processor and memory buffer modules. Open power application layer (OPAL) is the system firmware in the stack of POWER8 processor-based Linux-only servers.
The service processor, or baseboard management controller (BMC), is the primary control for autonomous sensor monitoring and event logging features on the LC server.
The BMC supports the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) for system monitoring and management. The BMC monitors the operation of the firmware during the boot process and also monitors the OPAL hypervisor for termination. The firmware code update is supported through the BMC and Intelligent Platform Monitoring Interface (IPMI) and the BMC Web GUI The GUI console is accessed using a web browser with a "http:" connection to port. See section 1.2 for the supported browsers that can be used with BMC Web GUI.
The Open Power Abstraction Layer (OPAL) provides hardware abstraction and run time services to the running host Operating System.
For the 8001 servers, only the OPAL bare-metal installs can be used. A KVM can be used on top of the installed OS to run Linux virtual guest OS machines.
Find out more about OPAL skiboot here:
https://github.com/open-power/skiboot
The Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) is an open standard for monitoring, logging, recovery, inventory, and control of hardware that is implemented independent of the main CPU, BIOS, and OS. It is the default console to use when you configure PowerKVM. The LC 8001 and CS 8005 servers provides one 10M/100M baseT IPMI port.
The ipmitool is a utility for managing and configuring devices that support IPMI. It provides a simple command-line interface to the service processor. You can install the ipmitool from the Linux distribution packages in your workstation, sourceforge.net, or another server (preferably on the same network as the installed server). For example, in Ubuntu, use this command:
$ sudo apt-get install ipmitool
For installing ipmitool from sourceforge, please see section 1.1 "Minimum ipmitool Code Level".
For more information about ipmitool, there are several good references for ipmitool commands:
1.The man page
2.The built-in command line help provides a list of IPMItool commands:
# ipmitool help
3.You can also get help for many specific IPMItool commands by adding the word help after the command:
# ipmitool channel help
4.For a list of common ipmitool commands and help on each, you may use the following link:
www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/linuxonibm/liabp/liabpcommonipmi.htm
To connect to your host system with IPMI, you need to know the IP address of the server and have
a valid password. To power on the server with the ipmitool, follow these steps:
1. Open a terminal program.
2. Power on your server with the ipmitool:
ipmitool -I lanplus -H bmc_ip_address -P ipmi_password power on
3. Activate your IPMI console:
ipmitool -I lanplus -H bmc_ip_address -P ipmi_password sol activate
Petitboot is a kexec based bootloader used by IBM POWER8 systems for doing the bare-metal installs on the 8001 and 8005 servers.
After the POWER8 system powers on, the petitboot bootloader scans local boot devices and network interfaces to find boot options that are available to the system. Petitboot returns a list of boot options that are available to the system. If you are using a static IP or if you did not provide boot arguments in your network boot server, you must provide the details to petitboot. You can configure petitboot to find your boot with the following instructions:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/linuxonibm/liabp/liabppetitbootadvanced.htm
You can edit petitboot configuration options, change the amount of time before Petitboot automatically boots, etc. with these instructions:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/linuxonibm/liabp/liabppetitbootconfig.htm
After you select to boot the ISO media for the Linux distribution of your choice, the installer wizard for that Linux distribution walks you through the steps to set up disk options, your root password, time zones, and so on.
You can read more about the petitboot bootloader program here:
https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/geoff/petitboot/petitboot.html
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a cross-platform, open source hypervisor that provides enterprise-class performance, scalability and security to run Linux and other workloads on a range of processor architectures. For the 8001 servers, Ubuntu KVM or Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) may be installed on top of a bare-metal install of Ubuntu or RHEL, respectively.
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) for IBM Power is an enterprise virtualization product produced by Red Hat, based on the KVM hypervisor. For more information, go to this link on the Red Hat portal:
Ubuntu KVM is configured by installing the missing virtualization packages (qemu-user qemu-utils cloud-image-utils qemu-system-ppc qemu-slof libvirt-bin numactl); adding users in a KVM group; disabling the SMT mode of the cpu using the ppc64_cpu tool; and enabling the KVM module in the kernel. For more information on how to complete these steps, refer to this link in the Ubuntu wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ppc64el/CommonQuestions#How_to_use_Ubuntu_as_a_hypervisor.3F
IBM PowerKVM is not supported on the 8001 servers.
Note: Power 8001 servers and their KVM options do not support AIX or IBM i guest VMs and cannot be managed by a HMC
For additional questions about the availability of this release and supported Power servers, consult the Red Hat Hardware Catalog:
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a cross-platform, open source hypervisor that provides enterprise-class performance, scalability and security to run Linux and other workloads on a range of processor architectures. For the 8005 servers, the KVM function is provided by the Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV) to create and manage partitions.
Nutanix AHV is an enterprise-class virtualization solution included with the Acropolis hyperconverged infrastructure stack on all Nutanix appliances, with no additional software components to install and manage.
IBM PowerKVM is not supported on the 8005 servers.
Note: Power CS821 and CS822 8005 servers and AHV do not support AIX or IBM i guest VMs and cannot be managed by a HMC.
This guide helps you install Ubuntu on a Linux on a Power Systems server.
Overview
Use the information found in http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/linuxonibm/liabw/liabwkickoff.htm to install Linux, in this case Ubuntu, on a non-virtualized (bare metal) IBM Power LC server. Note that the choice of PowerKVM is offered in the link but that is not a supported OS for the 8001 and 8005 servers.
The Ubuntu installer is available for download for specific Linux levels on Power Systems. For information about which systems support Ubuntu, see Supported Linux distributions for POWER8 Linux on Power systems at https://ibm.biz/BdEH5t.
Date | Description |
03/07/2018 | V2.20 release (BMC update only – no change to the PNOR) |
01/12/2018 | V2.11 release (PNOR only – no change to BMC code) |
09/18/2017 | V2.10 release - Adding servers 8005-12N and 8005-22N (No changes to PNOR or BMC code) for Nutanix 5.2 GA |
06/22/2017 | V2.10 release (PNOR only - no change to BMC code) |
05/25/2017 | V2.00 release - updated the readme ONLY. No changes to delivered binaries |
12/16/2016 | V2.00 for LC server 8001-12C and 8001-22C |
10/04/2016 | V1.10 release - Added Marvell SATA3 Controller |
09/09/2016 | New for LC server 8001-12C and 8001-22C |