AL740
For Impact, Severity and other Firmware definitions, Please
refer to the below 'Glossary of firmware terms' url:
http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/set2/sas/f/power5cm/home.html#termdefs
The complete Firmware Fix History for this
Release Level can be
reviewed at the following url:
http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/server/firmware/AL-IOC-Firmware-Hist.html
|
AL740_152_042 / FW740.81
06/24/14 |
Impact: Security
Severity: HIPER
System firmware changes that affect all systems
- 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.
- Multiple security problems were fixed in OpenSSL to
improve signature verification, ensure private key protection,
and to block plain-text recovery. The Common Vulnerabilities and
Exposures issue numbers for these problems are CVE-2013-0169,
CVE-2013-0166 and CVE-2011-4354.
|
AL740_126_042 / FW740.80
04/03/14 |
Impact: Availability
Severity: SPE
New features and functions
- Support was added in Advanced System Management Interface
(ASMI) to facilitate capture and reporting of debug data for system
performance problems. The "System Service Aids/Performance
Dump" menu was added to ASMI to perform this function.
System firmware changes that affect all systems
- A problem was fixed
that caused an intermittent loss of TTY serial port access to the
Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI) after a power off of the
system.
- Help text for the Advanced System Management Interface
(ASMI) "System Configuration/Hardware Deconfiguration/Clear All
Deconfiguration Errors" menu option was enhanced to clarify that when
selecting "Hardware Resources" value of "All hardware resources", the
service processor deconfiguration data is not cleared. The
"Service processor" must be explicitly selected for that to be cleared.
- A problem was fixed that prevented guard error logs from
being reported for FRUs that were guarded during the system power
on. This could happen if the same FRU had been previously
reported as guarded on a different power on of the system. The
requirement is now met that guarded FRUs are logged on every power on
of the system.
- A problem was fixed that caused the slot index to be
missing for virtual slot number 0 for the dynamic reconfiguration
connector (DRC) name for virtual devices. This error was visible
from the management console when using commands such as "lshwres -r
virtualio --rsubtype slot -m machine" to show the hardware resources
for virtual devices.
- A problem was fixed that caused unneeded resets of ethernet
adapters during logical partition (LPAR) power off or reboots.
The extra resets of the ethernet adapters could cause the network
switch to disable the ethernet links if the threshold for maximum
number of ethernet adapter resets per minute is exceeded.
System firmware changes that affect certain systems
- On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer installed, a
problem was fixed that occurred during Offline Converter Assembly (OCA)
replacement operations. The fix prevents a false Voltage
Regulator Module (VRM) fault and the logging of SRCs 10001511 or
10001521 from occurring. This resulted in the OCA LED
getting stuck in an on or "fault" state and the OCA not powering on.
- On a system with partitions with redundant Virtual
Asynchronous Services Interface (VASI) streams, a problem was
fixed that caused the system to terminate with SRC B170E540. The
affected partitions include Active Memory Sharing (AMS), encapsulated
state partitions, and hibernation-capable partitions. The problem
is triggered when the management console attempts to change the active
VASI stream in a redundant configuration. This may occur due to a
stream reconfiguration caused by Live Partition Mobility (LPM);
reconfiguring from a redundant Paging Service Partition (PSP) to a
single-PSP configuration; or conversion of a partition from AMS to
dedicated memory.
- On a system with a disk device with multiple boot
partitions, a problem was fixed that caused System Management Services
(SMS) to list only one boot partition. Even though only one boot
partition was listed in SMS, the AIX bootlist command could still be
used to boot from any boot partition.
|
AL740_121_042 / FW740.70
11/14/13 |
Impact: Availability
Severity: SPE
New features and functions
- Support was added in Advanced System Management Interface
(ASMI) for saving and restoring network settings using a USB flash
drive.
- Support was dropped for Secured Socket Layer (SSL) Version
2 and SSL weak and medium cipher suites in the service processor web
server (Ligthttpd). Unsupported web browser connections to the
Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI) secured port 443 (using
https://) will now be rejected if those browsers do not support SSL
version 3. Supported web browsers for Power7 ASMI are Netscape
(version 9.0.0.4), Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 7.0), Mozilla
Firefox (version 2.0.0.11), and Opera (version 9.24).
System firmware changes that affect all systems
- A problem was fixed
that caused a service processor dump to be generated with SRC B18187DA
"NETC_RECV_ER" logged.
- A problem was fixed that caused a L2 cache error to not
guard out the faulty processor, allowing the system to checkstop again
on an error to the same faulty processor.
- A problem was fixed that caused a HMC code update failure
for the FSP on the accept operation with SRC B1811402 or FSP is unable
to boot on the updated side.
- A problem was fixed that caused a 1000911E platform event
log (PEL) to be marked as not call home. The PEL is now a call
home to allow for correction. This PEL is logged when the
hypervisor has changed the Machine Type Model Serial Number (MTMS) of
an external enclosure to UTMP.xxx.xxxx because it cannot read the vital
product data (VPD), or the VPD has invalid characters, or if the MTMS
is a duplicate to another enclosure.
- A problem was fixed that caused a built-in self test (BIST)
for GX slots to create corrupt error log values that core dumped the
service processor with a B18187DA. The corruption was caused by a
failure to initialize the BIST array to 0 before starting the tests.
- A problem was fixed that caused the system attention LED to
be lit without a corresponding SRC and error log for the event.
This problem typically occurs when an operating system on a partition
terminates abnormally.
- DEFERRED: A problem
was fixed that caused a system checkstop during hypervisor time keeping
services. This deferred fix addresses a problem that has a very
low probability of occurrence. As such customers may wait for the
next planned service window to activate the deferred fix via a system
reboot.
- DEFERRED: A problem
was fixed that caused a system checkstop with SRC B113E504 for a
recoverable hardware fault. This deferred fix addresses a problem
that has a very low probability of occurrence. As such customers
may wait for the next planned service window to activate the deferred
fix via a system reboot.
System firmware changes that affect certain systems
- On systems in manufacturing default configuration (MDC), a
problem was fixed that caused the system to change from MDC to Hardware
Management Console (HMC)-managed mode even though the HMC was unable to
authenticate to the service processor. A system must be
successfully discovered by a HMC as a prerequisite to becoming
HMC-managed.
- On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer installed,
the firmware was enhanced to guarantee that an SRC will be generated
when there is a power supply voltage fault. If no SRC is
generated, a loss of power redundancy may not be detected, which can
lead to a drawer crash if the other power supply goes down. This
also fixes a problem that causes an 8 GB Fiber channel adapter in
the drawer to fail if the 12V level fails in one Offline Converter
Assembly (OCA).
- On systems managed by an HMC with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O
drawer installed, a problem was fixed that caused the hardware topology
on the management console for the managed system to show "null" instead
of "operational" for the affected I/O drawers.
- On systems with a ethernet PCI-Express adapter under a PLX
switch, an extended error handling (EEH) problem was fixed in run-time
abstraction services (RTAS) that caused fundamental resets of the
adapter to fail during error recovery, leaving the adapter in a
non-pingable state and off the network. Besides failure to ping,
the other symptom is that an AIX OS command of "enstat -d entX" where X
is the adapter number will fail with the following message:
"enstat -0909-004, Unable to get statistics on device entX, errno=11".
- A problem was fixed in the run-time abstraction services
(RTAS) extended error handling (EEH) for fundamental reset that caused
partitions to crash during adapter updates. The fundamental reset
of adapters now returns a valid return code. The adapter drivers
using fundamental reset affected by this fix are the following:
o QLogic PCIe Fibre Channel adapters (combo card)
o IBM PCIe Obsidian
o Emulex BE3-based ethernet adapters
o Broadcom-based PCIe2 4-port 1Gb ethernet
o Broadcom-based FlexSystem EN2024 4-port 1Gb ethernet for compute nodes
- On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer installed, a
problem
was fixed that where a Offline Converter Assembly (OCA)
fault would appear to persist after a OCA micro-reset or OCA
replacement. The fault bit reported to the OS may not be cleared,
indicating a fault still exists in the I/O drawer after it has been
repaired.
- On systems involved in a series of consecutive Live
Partition Mobility (LPM) operations, a memory leak problem was fixed
in the run time abstraction service (RTAS) that caused a partition run
time AIX crash with SRC 0c20. Other possible symptoms include
error logs with SRC BA330002 (RTAS memory allocation failure).
|
AL740_112_042 / FW740.61
07/26/13 |
Impact: Availability
Severity: SPE
System firmware changes that affect all systems
- A problem was
fixed that caused a migrated partition to reboot during transfer to a
VIOS 2.2.2.0, and later, target system. A manual reboot would be
required if transferred to a target system running an earlier VIOS
release. Migration recovery may also be necessary.
- A problem was fixed that can cause Anchor (VPD) card
corruption and A70047xx SRCs to be logged. Note: If a
serviceable event with SRC A7004715 is present or was logged
previously, damage to the VPD card may have occurred. After the fix is
applied, replacement of the Anchor VPD card is recommended in
order to restored full redundancy.
|
AL740_110_042 / FW740.60
04/30/13 |
Impact: Serviceability
Severity: ATT
New features and functions
- Support for booting an IBM i partition from a USB flash
drive.
System firmware changes that affect all systems
- A problem was
fixed that prevented the system attention indicator from being turned
off when a service processor reset occurred.
- A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1813221, which
indicates a failure of the battery on the service processor, to be
erroneously logged after a service processor reset or power cycle.
- A problem was fixed that caused the Advanced System
Management Interface (ASMI) to produce a service processor dump when
changing the admin user password.
- A problem was fixed that caused various SRCs to be
erroneously logged at boot time including B181E6C7 and B1818A14.
- A problem was fixed that caused a card (and its children)
that was removed after the system was booted to continue to be listed
in the guard menus in the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI).
- A problem was fixed that caused the service processor to
crash when it boots from the new level during a concurrent firmware
installation.
- A problem was fixed that caused the management console to
display incorrect data for a virtual Ethernet adapter's transactions
statistics.
- A problem was fixed that caused a hibernation resume
operation to hang if the connection to the paging space is lost near
the end of the resume processing. This is more likely on a
partition that supports remote restart.
- A problem was fixed that caused the system to terminate
with a bad address checkstop during mirroring defragmentation.
- A problem was fixed that caused the hibernation validation
of a remote restart partition operation to fail with an "NvRam size
error". This also affects the capability to migrate the partition.
- The Power Hypervisor was enhanced to insure better
synchronization of vSCSI and NPIV I/O interrupts to partitions.
- On systems managed by a management console, a problem was
fixed that was caused by an attempt to modify a virtual adapter from
the management console command line when the command specifies it is an
Ethernet adapter, but the virtual ID specified is for an adapter type
other than Ethernet. The managed system has to be rebooted to
restore communications with the management console when this problem
occurs; SRC B7000602 is also logged.
- A problem was fixed that caused an error log generated by
the
partition firmware to show conflicting firmware levels. This
problem occurs after a firmware update or a Live Partition Mobility
(LPM) operation on the system.
System firmware changes that affect certain systems
- On systems with I/O towers attached, a problem was fixed
that caused SRC 10009135, followed by SRC 10009139, to be logged,
indicating that SPCN loop mode was being broken, then reestablished.
- On systems with I/O towers attached, a problem was fixed
that caused multiple service processor reset/reloads if the tower was
continuously sending invalid System Power Control Network (SPCN) status
data.
- On 8202-E4C and 8205-E6C systems with the PCIe expansion
card feature code (F/C) 5610 or F/C 5685 installed, a problem was fixed
that caused the wrong FRU part number (74Y8565 instead of 74Y5221) to
be called out when the fan on the expansion card failed.
- On partitions with the virtual Trusted Platform Module
(vTPM) enabled, a problem was fixed that caused a memory leak, and
failure, when vTPM was disabled, a vTPM-enabled partition was migrated,
or a vTPM-enabled partition was deleted.
- On systems running multiple IBM i partitions that are
configured to communicate with each other via virtual Opticonnect, and
Active Memory Sharing (AMS), AMS operations may time-out. When
this problem occurs, a platform reboot may be required to recover.
- On systems running Active Memory Sharing (AMS) partitions,
a problem was fixed that may arise due to the incorrect handling of a
return code in an error path during the Live Partition Mobility
(LPM) of an AMS partition.
- On systems using IPv6 addresses, the firmware was enhanced
to reduce the time it take to install an operating system using the
Network Installation Manager (NIM).
- On systems with F/C EU07, the RDX SATA internal docking
station for removable disk cartridge, a problem was fixed that caused
SRCs BA210000 and BA210003 to be logged, and the System Management
Services (SMS) menu firmware to drop into the ok> prompt, when the
default boot list was built.
- A problem was fixed that caused SRC BA330000 to be logged
after the successful migration of a partition running Ax740_xxx
firmware to a system running Ax760, or a later release, or
firmware. This problem can also cause SRCs BA330002, BA330003,
and BA330004 to be erroneously logged over time when a partition is
migrated from a system running Ax760, or a later release, to a system
running Ax740_xxx firmware.
- On system running an IBM i partition, the partition boot
may succeed after a long delay, or may fail, if a mode D boot attempt
is made, there is more than one USB device attached, and the IBM i
operating system (OS) image is on the second USB device.
- On system running an IBM i partition, a problem was fixed
that caused a number of informational SRC BA09000F to be logged when a
mode D partition boot is done. This SRC is logged if a device
that supports removable media is installed and the media is not present.
- On systems running Active Memory Sharing (AMS) partitions,
a timing problem was fixed that may occur if the system is undergoing
AMS pool size changes.
|
AL740_100_042
12/05/12 |
Impact: Serviceability
Severity: ATT
System firmware changes that affect all systems
- A problem was
fixed that can cause fans in the server to run at maximum speed and
generate a serviceable event during system boot (B130B8AF, a predictive
error with hardware callout) as a result of an incorrect calibration of
a particular thermal sensor.
|
AL740_098_042
11/28/12 |
Impact: Availability
Severity: SPE
System firmware changes that affect all systems
- HIPER/Non-Pervasive: DEFERRED: A problem was fixed
that caused a system crash with SRC B170E540.
- HIPER/Non-Pervasive:
A
related problem was also fixed that could cause a live lock on the
power bus resulting in a system crash.
- To address poor placement of partitions following a reboot
of a server with unlicensed cores, the firmware was enhanced to run the
affinity manager when the initialize configuration operation is done
from the HMC. A problem was also fixed that caused the hypervisor
to be left in an inconsistent state after a partition create operation
failed.
|
AL740_095_042
09/19/12 |
Impact: Availability
Severity: SPE
New features and functions
- Support for booting the IBM i operating system from a USB
tape drive.
System firmware changes that affect all systems
- The firmware was
enhanced to correctly diagnose the failing FRU when SRC B1xxE504 with
error signature "MCFIR[14] - Hang timer detector" was logged.
- A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash after a
recoverable error was logged on an I/O hub.
- A problem was fixed that caused a "code accept" during a
concurrent firmware installation from the HMC to fail with SRC E302F85C.
- The firmware was enhanced to continue booting when SRC
B181C803 with description "WIRE_PROC_CST_HW_FAIL" is logged during boot.
- A problem was fixed that caused the suspension of a
partition to fail if a large amount of data has to be stored to resume
the partition.
- A problem was fixed that caused a system crash with
unrecoverable SRC B7000103 and "ErFlightRecorder" in the failing stack.
- A problem was fixed that caused an external interrupt to
get stuck for some period of time before being presented to the
operating system in certain scenarios in which there is a high rate of
interrupts.
- On 8231-E1C and 8231-E2C systems, the firmware was enhanced
to improve the service actions for SRC 11002691.
- A problem was fixed that caused DIMMs to be deconfigured,
and SRC B123E504 to be erroneously logged, when additional DIMMs of
larger capacity than the DIMMs already in the system were added.
System firmware changes that affect certain systems
- On systems that are managed by a Hardware Management
Console (HMC), and on which Internet Explorer (IE) is used to access
the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI) on the HMC, a problem
was fixed that caused IE to hang for about 10 minutes after saving
changes to network parameters on the ASMI.
- A problem was fixed that caused a network installation of
IBM i to fail when the client was on the same subnet as the server.
- On systems with a 5796 or 5797 I/O drawer attached, a
problem was fixed that could cause a system hang.
- On systems with I/O drawers feature code (F/C) 5802 or 5877
attached, and running the Active Energy Manager, a problem was fixed
that caused SRC B7000602 to be erroneously logged.
|
AL740_088_042
05/25/12 |
Impact: Availability
Severity: SPE
New features and functions
- Support for IBM i Live Partition Mobility (LPM)
- Support for the EXP30 Ultra SSD I/O Drawer, feature code
(F/C) 5888.
- Support for the 8246-L2C and 8246-L2S systems.
- Support for the 8246-L1C systems.
- Support for the 8246-L1S systems.
System firmware changes that affect all systems
- A problem was
fixed that prevented the user from changing the boot mode or keylock
setting after a remote restart-capable partition is created, even after
the partition's paging device is on-line.
- A problem was fixed that caused a partition with dedicated
processors to hang with SRC BA33xxxx when rebooted, after it was
migrated using a Live Partition Mobility (LPM) operation from a system
running Ax730 to a system running Ax740, or vice-versa.
- A problem was fixed that caused the service processor's
eth0 or eth1 IP addresses to change to "IPv6 NA" when viewed on
the control (operator) panel when a laptop was connected to the service
processor.
- A problem was fixed that caused booting from a virtual
fibre channel tape device to fail with SRC B2008105.
- The firmware was enhanced to increase the threshold of soft
NVRAM errors on the service processor to 32 before SRC B15xF109 is
logged. (Replacement of the service processor is recommended if
more than one B15xF109 is logged per week.)
- A problem was fixed that caused informational SRC A70047FF,
which may indicate that the Anchor (VPD) card should be replaced, to be
erroneously logged again after the Anchor card was replaced.
- On system managed by an HMC, a problem was fixed that
caused the lsstat command on the HMC to display an erroneously high
number of packets transmitted and received on a vlan interface.
- A problem was fixed that caused a partition that owned a
powered-off slot to hang when being shutdown after a DLPAR operation
was performed on it.
System firmware changes that affect certain systems
- The firmware resolves undetected N-mode stability problems
and improves error reporting on the feature code (F/C) 5802 and 5877
I/O drawer power subsystem.
- On systems on which the service processor is using IPv6
Ethernet addresses, a problem was fixed that caused a service processor
dump to be taken with SRC B181EF88.
- On systems running the virtual Trusted Platform Module
(vTPM), a
problem was fixed that caused the system to crash when the vTPM adjunct
was reset.
- On 8231-E1C, 8231-E2C, 8202-E4C and 8205-E6C systems
running IBM i partitions, a problem was fixed that prevented slots on
the same PCI bus from being assigned to different partitions.
This can result in SRC B600690B being logged when a partition is booted.
- The Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI) menus were
enhanced to more clearly indicate which processor cores were
deconfigured by the Field Core Override option (F/C 2319).
- A problem was fixed that caused various operations to hang,
such as running lsvpd from a partition, or a concurrent firmware
installation.
|
AL740_077_042
03/06/12 |
Impact: Availability
Severity: HIPER - High Impact/PERvasive, Should be installed as soon as
possible.
System firmware changes that affect all systems
- The firmware was
enhanced to log SRC B7006A72 as informational instead of
predictive. This will prevent unnecessary service actions on PCIe
adapters and the associated I/O planars.
System firmware changes that affect certain systems
On systems
running system firmware level AL740_075 and managed by a Hardware
Management Console (HMC), a problem was fixed that prevented HMC
authentication to a managed system in the "Pending
Authentication" state, and prevented the Advanced System Management
Interface (ASMI) admin user's password from being changed. |