F50 upgrade to AIX 5.2

[normntwrk]

Anyone upgraded an F50 to 5.2 from 4.3.3 without ugrading the system firmware ? I only ask because it looks like the firmware upgrade has 10% chance of failure on this machine in which case the machine won't boot at all. I'd rather have a machine I can bring back from a mksysb than one that won't boot

Norm

 

[Mag0007]

I would strong suggest that you would update the firmware...

 

[DukeSSD]

The IBM documentation for the F50 firmware update says you are only at risk if your service processor firmware is not at least wc980413.
Did you miss all those Y2k updates ?
If it is wc980413 or later, the number is the date, 13th of April 1998 in reverse, you have nothing to worry about.
I would take a couple of mksysb's before attempting a 5.2 upgrade on firmware older than this in case you have to back out.
There is no mention of adding 5.2 or even 5L support in the documentation but I'm with Mag0007, go for the firmware update.

http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/server/mdownload2/7025F50F.html

 

[normntwrk]

Thanks for the info. The data coming back is:
lscfg -vp | grep alterable
ROM Level (alterable).......L99308
ROM Level. (non-alterable)...wc990831
ROM Level (alterable).......wc990831

so it looks like it's 1999

It doesn't look like any of these servers had have any updates
for a long time, I have about 16 of them to do at different locations in North America and I bet I run into this kind of thing on all of them.

I've had them do a couple of mksysbs and I'll do the firmware upgrade first before the 5.2 and cross my fingers

Thanks again
Norm

 

[gilsont]

[TT]

According to documentation I've seen, AIX 5.2 on the 7025 is not supported. You can only go to v5.1. The F50 may install v5.2 (indeed, I have done it myself) but the graphics card we have is not supported under 5.2 so we have to run with an ascii console. This was not a problem as the server was only lab based.

Check out support before upgrading.

[/TT]

 

[DukeSSD]

The F50 is a - the first - CHRP machine.
Even the p5 machines are CHRP architecture (CHRP = Common Hardware Reference Platform. Scary though it is MACs are CHRP compliant but DON’T try to install AIX on one, the kernel and device drivers don’t support the MAC hardware).
See that link I posted above...
I'll do it again...

http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/server/mdownload2/7025F50F.html

If you take a look at the firmware revision history you will see the latest update for the F50 is to support AIX 5.3.
There are some adapters and devices that have lost support during the various levels of AIX, so if you have dodgy old adapters you might run into problems, but the basic machine supports AIX 5.3.