IBM POWER9 Systems LC Server Firmware

Applies to:  AC922 (8335-GTH) and AC922 (8335-GTX)

This document provides information about the installation of Licensed Machine or Licensed Internal Code, which is sometimes referred to generically as microcode or firmware.

Contents

1.0 Systems Affected

This package provides firmware for the Power System AC922 (8335-GTH) and AC922 (8335-GTX) servers only.

The firmware level in this package is:

• •OP920.00 / PNOR  OP9_v2.0_2.14. and openBMC ibm-v2.1-438-r12
   

1.1 Minimum ipmitool Code Level

This section specifies the "Minimum ipmitool Code Level" required by the System Firmware for managing the system.   OpenPOWER requires ipmitool level v1.8.15 or later to execute correctly on the OP910  and later firmware.  It must be capable of establishing a IPMI v2 session with the ipmi support on the BMC.

 Verify your ipmitool level on your Linux workstation using the following command:

bash-4.1$ ipmitool -V

ipmitool version 1.8.15

If you are need to update or add impitool to your Linux workstation , you can compile ipmitools (current level 1.8.15) for Linux as follows from 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.

1.2 Fix level Information on IBM OpenPOWER Components and Operating systems

For specific fix level information on key components of IBM Power Systems LC and Linux operating systems,  please refer to the documentation in the IBM Knowledge Center for the AC922 (8335-GTH) and AC922(8335-GTX):

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/POWER9/p9hdx/8335_gth_landing.htm

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/POWER9/p9hdx/8335_gtx_landing.htm

1.3 Minimum xCAT level 2.13.4 for use in firmware updates

If using xCAT on the host OS to do firmware updates, the minimum xCAT level that should be used is 2.13.4 because it has stability improvements for the firmware update process.  See the xCAT 2.13.4 release notes below for more information.

https://github.com/xcat2/xcat-core/wiki/XCAT_2.13.4_Release_Notes

1.4 Required NVIDIA CUDA driver level for the Tesla V100 GPU

The Linux OS has a NVIDIA CUDA driver that must be at level 396.26 or later to be compatible with OP920.00.  Without this driver, a GPU which has faulted and gone through a GPU reset can cause a Terminate Immediate (TI)  for the system.

The Power AC922 server delivers four Tesla V100 with NVLink GPUs supported in two processor sockets.

The Tesla CUDA driver can be obtained at the direct NVIDIA link of "http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/134380/en-us":

TESLA DRIVER FOR LINUX POWER RHEL 7

Version: 396.26

Release Date: 2018.5.17

Operating System: Linux POWER LE RHEL 7

CUDA Toolkit: 9.2

Language: English (US)

File Size: 47.26 MB

1.5 Enabling Trusted Boots in RHEL7.5-ALT

On Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for PPC, RHEL-Alt 7.5, The Trusted Platform Module (TPM) device driver is not loaded automatically at boot time.  Without this driver, the TPM device will not be accessible.

This affects any user-space application needing to access the TPM, as well as kernel security functions, such as the Integrity Measurement Architecture subsystem (IMA) in the Linux kernel.  Without the TPM driver loaded, IMA will be unable to record trusted measurements to the TPM.

To load the driver manually, as root:

# modprobe tpm_i2c_nuvoton

To load the driver automatically at boot time:

# echo "tpm_i2c_nuvoton" > /etc/modules-load.d/tpm.conf"

The TPM device driver will be integrated as a built-in kernel module in a future release 7 of RHEL-Alt.  Once this is done, it will be loaded automatically and this procedure will no longer be necessary

2.0 Important Information

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 servers.

Concurrent system firmware update is not supported on LC servers.

2.1 Upgrade Option for 8335-GTG to 8335-GTH

The 8335-GTG model is not supported for the OP920.00 release.  However, the 8335-GTG may be upgraded to a 8335-GTH model by a SSR using the steps in the upgrade guide.  These steps involve replacing the hardware processor features in the 8335-GTG and then updating to the below alternative  PNOR and BMC images that can be found in Fix Central for the OP920.00 release.  At the successful conclusion of the upgrade steps, the system model will be 8335-GTH running with the OP920.00 release firmware.

2.1.1 Processor feature conversions

The existing processors being replaced during a model or feature conversion become the property of IBM and must be returned.   Feature conversions are always implemented on a "quantity of one for quantity of one" basis. Multiple existing features may not be converted to a single new feature. Single existing features may not be converted to multiple new features.

Feature conversions for 8335-GTG to 8335-GTH for processor features:

2.1.2 Files to support the GTG to GTH upgrade

• •gtg_to_gth_upgrade_guide.txt  - readme file for steps to use to upgrade the 8335-GTG to the 8335-GTH model. 

• •witherspoon-IBM-OP9-v2.0-2.14-cfm_prod.pnor.squashfs.tar - alternative  pnor image for use in the gtg to gth upgrade option. 

• •obmc-witherspoon-ibm-v2.1-cfm.ubi.mtd.tar  - alternative bmc image for use in the the gtg to gth upgrade option. 

3.0 Firmware Information

Use the following examples as a reference to determine whether your installation will be concurrent or disruptive.

For the LC server systems, the installation of system firmware is always disruptive.

3.1 Firmware Information and Description

The BMC and PNOR image tar files are used to update the primary side of the PNOR and the primary side of the BMC only, leaving the golden sides unchanged.

List of five files published (the last three are only used when doing a 8335-GTG to 8335-GTH model upgrade):

1. 1.obmc-phosphor-image-witherspoon.ubi.mtd.tar 

2. 2.witherspoon.pnor.squashfs.tar 

3. 3.gtg_to_gth_upgrade_guide.txt  -  (readme file for steps to use to upgrade the 8335-GTG to the 8335-GTH model). 

4. 4.witherspoon-IBM-OP9-v2.0-2.14-cfm_prod.pnor.squashfs.tar - (alternative  pnor image for use in the gtg to gth upgrade option). 

5. 5.obmc-witherspoon-ibm-v2.1-cfm.ubi.mtd.tar  - (alternative bmc image for use in the gtg to gth upgrade option). 

    

Note: The Checksum can be found by running the Linux/Unix/AIX md5sum command against the Hardware Platform Management (hpm) file (all 32 characters of the checksum are listed), ie: md5sum <filename>

After a successful update to this firmware level, the PNOR components and BMC should be at the following levels.  

To display the PNOR level, use the following BMC command:  "cat /var/lib/phosphor-software-manager/pnor/ro/VERSION"

And the BMC command line command "cat" can be used to display the BMC level:  "cat /etc/os-release".

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 level:         driver content    

  display pnor FW level using this cmd:       "cat /var/lib/phosphor-software-manager/pnor/ro/VERSION"

    IBM-witherspoon-ibm-OP9-v2.0-2.14-prod

    op-build-v2.0-11-gb248194-dirty  <-- Issue 1729

    buildroot-2018.02.1-6-ga8d1126

    skiboot-v6.0.1

    hostboot-8ab6717d-pfc036fa

    occ-77bb5e6

    linux-4.16.8-openpower2-pb532d68

    petitboot-v1.7.1-p1188545

    machine-xml-7cd20a6

    hostboot-binaries-276bb70

    capp-ucode-p9-dd2-v4

    sbe-a596975

    hcode-b8173e8

openBMC level:

display BMC FW level via ssh session on the BMC , using this cmd    root@witherspoon:~# cat /etc/os-release

ID:                        openbmc-phosphor

NAME:                 Phosphor OpenBMC (Phosphor OpenBMC Project Reference Distro)

VERSION:           "ibm-v2.1"

VERSION_ID      "ibm-v2.1-438-g0030304-r12-0-g5ee4fb0"

PRETTY_NAME "Phosphor OpenBMC (Phosphor OpenBMC Project Reference Distro) ibm-v2.1"

BUILD_ID            "ibm-v2.1-438-g0030304-r12"

4.0 Operating System Information

OS levels supported by the LC 8335 servers:

-  Minimum level is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 for IBM Power LE (POWER9), also known as RHEL 7.5-ALT LE, with first Z-stream or later (https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:1374 has the needed kernel "kernel-alt-4.14.0-49.2.2.el7a.src.rpm" )

Additional OS level supported by the AC922(8335-GTH) server:

 - Ubuntu 18.04, or later (with no GPU option)

IBM Power LC 8335 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

4.1 Linux Operating System

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.  

A supported version of Linux on the Power LC 8335 is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 for IBM Power LE (POWER9)  (RHEL 7.5-ALT LE) with the first Z-stream.

For additional questions about the availability of this release and supported Power servers, consult the Red Hat Hardware Catalog at

https://access.redhat.com/products/red-hat-enterprise-linux/#addl-arch.

For the AC922 (8335-GTH) that is configured without GPUs, there is the option of using Linux Ubuntu 18.04 or later as the OS.

For more information about Linux on Power, see the Linux on Power developer center at https://developer.ibm.com/linuxonpower/

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

4.2 How to Determine the Level of a Linux Operating System

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.

4.3 How to Determine if the opal-prd (Processor Recovery Diagnostics) package is installed

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 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

5.0 How to Determine The Currently Installed Firmware Level

To display the PNOR level, use the following BMC command:  "cat /var/lib/phosphor-software-manager/pnor/ro/VERSION"

And the BMC command line command "cat" can be used to display the BMC level:  "cat /etc/os-release".

Note: the "cat" commands are run after ssh to the BMC as root and the default password is 0penBmc (where 0 is the zero character).

6.0 Downloading the Firmware Package

Follow the instructions on Fix Central. You must read and agree to the license agreement to obtain the firmware packages.

7.0 Installing the Firmware

7.1  IBM Power Systems Firmware maintenance

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.

7.2 OpenBMC System Firmware Update using openbmctool

The process of updating firmware on the OpenBMC managed servers is documented below.

The sequence of events that must happen is the following:

•Power off the Host

•Update and Activate BMC

•Update and Activate PNOR

•Reboot the BMC (applies new BMC image)

•Power on the Host (applies new PNOR image)

The OpenBMC firmware updates (BMC and PNOR)  for the LC 8335 servers can be managed via the command line with the openbmctool.

The openbmctool is obtained using the IBM Support Portal.

1. 1.Go to the IBM Support Portal. 

2. 2.In the search field, enter your machine type and model.  Then click the correct product support entry for your system. 

3. 3.From the Downloads list, click the openbmctool for your machine type and model. 

4. 4.Follow the instructions to install and run the openbmctool.  You will need to provide the file locations of the BMC firmware image tar and PNOR firmware image tar that must be downloaded from Fix Central for the update level needed. 

Information on the openbmctool and the firmware update process can be found in the IBM Knowledge Center:  

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER9/p9ei8/p9ei8_update_firmware_openbmctool.htm .

8.0 System Management and Virtualization

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 POWER processor and memory buffer modules. OpenPOWER application layer (OPAL) is the system firmware in the stack of POWER processor-based Linux-only servers.

8.1  BMC Service Processor IPMI

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.

8.2 OpenPOWER Abstraction Layer (OPAL)

The OpenPOWER Abstraction Layer (OPAL) provides hardware abstraction and run time services to the running host Operating System.

For the 8335 servers, only the OPAL bare-metal installs can be used.

Find out more about OPAL skiboot here:

https://github.com/open-power/skiboot

8.3 Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI)

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.  The LC 8335 servers provide 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 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:

The man page

The built-in command line help provides a list of IPMItool commands:
# ipmitool help

You can also get help for many specific IPMItool commands by adding the word help after the command:  
# ipmitool channel help

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

8.4 Petitboot bootloader

Petitboot is a kexec based bootloader used by IBM POWER9 systems for doing the bare-metal installs on the 8335 servers.

After the POWER9 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

9.0 Quick Start Guide for Installing Linux on the LC 8335 server

This guide helps you install Linux on Power Systems server.

Overview

Use the information found in http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/linuxonibm/liabw/liabwkickoff.htm to install Linux  on a non-virtualized (bare metal) IBM Power LC server.

10.0 Change History