p570 firmware update 1

[unixfreak]

Man, is this complicated. I even had two IBM CEs give it a go but no. And IBM website isn't helpful.

Well, I've got the fixes but the HMC won't accept it. "No fixes on DVD..." or something. I've been told by IBM that you can do this from AIX and I've done this on other servers before but can't remember the steps.

So can I do this from an AIX partition and how?

Thanks

 

[plamb]

did you burn the DVD yourself or direct from IBM. The format is critical.

 

[unixfreak]

The CEs told me to burn a CD with the two files, that's it. What's the format?

Cheers

 

[p5wizard]

Use CD-R or DVD-RAM, not CD-RW.

This is sth. I've read on the IBM microcode website.

HTH,

p5wizard

 

[hfaix]

Did you use the standard LIC update or MES? I assume you read the website closely that says if you're changing release levels, as well as fix levels, you'll have to do an Manufactoring Equiptment Upgrade instead of just the "update lic".

I'm with you. The website and this process suck.

 

[unixfreak]

This is only a fix level going from 096_095 to 096_096. Don't know what LIC and MES is. The CE trying to do the upgrade used the "Manufactoring Equiptment Upgrade" menu. Is there an easier way?

Cheers

 

[p5wizard]

Just double-checking. Is your HMC level V4R4? -> I believe this a prereq. for FW level upgrade/update to SF225_096_096.


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[unixfreak]

It's version 4 release 4.0

 

[hfaix]

Version 4R4 should be ok for the HMC.

I'm not sure about the upgrade, because according the the website they didn't have a 95 managed system microcode. The current is SF225_096_096, and the last was 01SF222_081_081. I think any upgrade to 096 will require Manufactoring Equiptment Upgrade ( I called it MES ).

 

[p5wizard]

- download p5 and i5 iso file from

http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/server/mdownload/p5andi5.iso

- burn this iso file on a blank CD-R disk (nero or the like)
- use 'Manufacturing Equipment Specification upgrade' (not the update wizard)

follow detailed steps found at:
-----------------------------------------------------------
To access install instructions go to this URL

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/eserver/

and follow the steps shown below (these steps are described in English only):

Select your country, then under Hardware select English.

In the left-hand panel, select
--> Service, support and troubleshooting
--> Service and support
--> Getting fixes
--> Firmware (Licensed Internal Code) fixes
--> Applying firmware (Licensed Internal Code) fixes
--> Upgrading to a new server firmware release

Choose the options for your server configuration.
-----------------------------------------------------------

We will be upgrading a 570 from SF222_075 to SF225_096 soon - I will post the outcome here.

HTH,

p5wizard

 

[p5wizard]

We performed upgrade as outlined in my previous post. Apart from not being able to start LPARs afterwards all went fine ;-) This might seem a bit discouraging but read on...

We upgraded first our HMC to V4R4.0 (concurrently - performed last week) - You might want to plan this a bit ahead because you cannot (re)start an LPAR or perform a DLPAR operation during the HMC upgrade. The HMC upgrade in itself doesn't take all that long, but on restart you might run in to trouble - we did have a minor issue with a FS not getting through an fsck run...

We downloaded the p5 iso image (see previous post) and burned it on a CD-R disk - actually we burned two disks should one prove unreadable or sth.

Then the Manufacturing Equipment Specifiaction upgrade itself is pretty straightforward. Note although the website claims you can use a web/ftp repository as source for the upgrade, don't believe it - you must use an optical disk (DVD or CDR).

Note: we used the HMC PC-client session in order to document the procedure (cut&paste screen images). Otherwise we would have used the HMC box itself.

The MES-upgrade procedure goes through some stages and in all takes about 45 minutes:
approx
time stage
------- -----------
00:00 start
00:15 power down
01:15 installing updates
16:30 restart FSP
22:30 power on
45:00 end

We used the LIC update_wizard afterwards to verify that the level is now SF225_096.

Afterwards all our LPARs with profiles seemed OK, just that whenever we tried activating an LPAR, the HMC issued an HSCL061C message saying that it could not activate memory for that LPAR. After restarting the WSM session (PC client), still no luck. But by opening up the properties of the LPAR profile and increasing/decreasing the desired memory and then closing the properties screen, the LPAR started fine. Perhaps memory housekeeping in HMC or p5 firmware is a bit askew... Anyway AIX5.2-05 and AIX5.3-02 LPARs started without trouble.


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[hfaix]

When you installed the firmware, did it install to both temporary and permenant, or just temporary? When I put 096 on, it installed to both, and I was told this wasn't supposed to be the case.

 

[p5wizard]

All sides are SF225_096, which makes sense to me, because the base level goes from SF222 to SF225, which makes it impossible to 'rollback' to _075...

To revert to SF222_075 you would have to reinstall it - but I doubt that this is even possible. Let's say it made me a bit worrisome. But not upgrading can also give you heartburn, because a) AIX MLs are tested on newest available HW and µCode and b) any HW problem when reported to IBM results in the standard answer: "Are you at the latest firmware?".

# lscfg -vp|grep -p Firmware
System Firmware:
Code Level, LID Keyword.....Phyp_1 16542005021180A00701
Code Level, LID Keyword.....PFW 19012005021581CF0681
Code Level, LID Keyword.....FSP_Ker 15432005031181E00100
Code Level, LID Keyword.....FSP_Fil 15432005031181E00101
Code Level, LID Keyword.....FipS_BU 15432005031181E00200
Code Level, LID Keyword.....SMA 10422004102681E00500
Code Level, LID Keyword.....SPCN3 162020040219A0E00A11
Code Level, LID Keyword.....SPCN1 091620040823A0E00D00
Code Level, LID Keyword.....SPCN2 084720040818A0E00D20
Product Specific.(MI).......SF225_096 SF225_096 SF225_096


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[p5wizard]

Here's IBM support's response re HSCL061C:

This will be fixed in the next release GA5 (HMC 4.5.0)
target release is 5/27.
You did apply the correct workaround.

Here are more details of this issue:

HSCL061C Operation failed to allocate memory

After firmware upgraded to 096 or later, the hypervisor memory
usage went up. If there is little or no free memory, PHYP might
lower partitions' current memory allocation. At that time, partition's
current and pending memory allocations are out of sync. Most likely,
the pending memory allocation is overcommitted. HMC does not sync
current & pending memory information in that scenario. So, when users
trying to activate a partition, HMC does not change the pending memory
allocation. PHYP will reject the pending memory setting since it's
overcommitted.

Workaround:
1. query current & pending memory allocation:
From the command line: lshwres -m <cec name> -r mem --level lpar
2. If a partition's curr_mem < pend_mem, modify the partition profile's
desired memory to curr_mem prior the activation.


HTH,

p5wizard