IBM Power Systems Scale-out LC Server Firmware

Applies to:  LC921(9006-12P) and LC922(9006-22P)

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 Systems Scale-out LC921 (9006-12P)  and LC922 (9006-22P).

The firmware level in this package is:

• •V1.16-20180518 

These are the following images:

BMC Firmware:      SMT_P9_122.bin

PNOR Firmware:      P9DSU20180518_IBM_prod_sign.pnor (Production keys)

pUpdate version 2.19 Utility for powerpc:         pUpdate

pUpdate version 2.19 Utility for x86 32-bit:  pUpdate_x86_32

pUpdate version 2.19 Utility for x86 64-bit:  pUpdate_x86_64

Details on the package binaries are included in section 3.1

1.1 Minimum ipmitool Code Level

This section specifies the "Minimum ipmitool Code Level" required by the System Firmware to perform firmware installations and managing the system.  OpenPOWER requires ipmitool level v1.8.15 to execute correctly on the LC server 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 Sourceforge:

1.1.1  Download ipmitool 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        

1.2 Minimum Browser levels for BMC Web GUI

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 

1.3 Fix level Information on IBM OpenPOWER Components and Operating systems

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 LC921 and LC922 servers:

9006-12P:        http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER9/p9hdx/9006_12p_landing.htm

9006-22P        http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER9/p9hdx/9006_22p_landing.htm

1.4  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 these LC servers.

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 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.

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 pUpdate.  

After a successful update to the new 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:  

Product Name          : OpenPOWER Firmware

Product Version       : open-power-SUPERMICRO-P9DSU-V1.16-20180518-prod

Product Extra         :        op-build-1c5f0cc

Product Extra         :        skiboot-v6.0-p33aa9e0

Product Extra         :        hostboot-f911e5c-p36956fa

Product Extra         :        occ-77bb5e6

Product Extra         :        linux-4.16.7-openpower2-p3436ea7

Product Extra         :        petitboot-v1.7.1-pee4c1f8

Product Extra         :        machine-xml-218a77a

Product Extra         :        sbe-8e

BMC Level:                        

Display BMC firmware level using the "ipmitool mc info | grep Firmware" command:

Firmware Revision         : 1.22

4.0 Operating System Information

OS levels supported by the LC921 and LC922 servers:

 - Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.5 little endian (LE) (POWER9), or later

 - Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS

 - Virtualization Engine

Feature (#EC16) -OpenPOWER non-virtualized configuration (also known as bare-metal install)

IBM Power LC921 and LC922 servers support 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.  One supported version of Linux on the IBM Power LC921 and LC922 servers is Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS for IBM POWER9.  For more information about Ubuntu Server for Ubuntu for POWER9 see the following website:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ppc64el

Another supported version of Linux on the LC921 and LC922  servers is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 LE.  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 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

The system firmware is a combination of BMC and PNOR firmware levels.

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

Use the ipmitool "mc info" command or the BMC Web GUI System tab to look at the BMC level.

      ipmitool -I lanplus -H <bmc host IP address> -P ADMIN -U ADMIN mc info|grep "Firmware"

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 Updating the System Firmware with the pUpdate utility

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 " 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/POWER9/p9eit/p9eit_update_firmware_pupdate.htm

7.3 Supporting Diagnostics

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/POWER9/p9eit/p9eit_diags_kickoff.htm

7.4 Installing ipmitool on Ubuntu

OpenPOWER requires Source Forge ipmitool level v1.8.15 to execute correctly on the P9 firmware.  

7.5  Updating the System Firmware using the BMC Web GUI

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 BMC Update.

3.        In the BMC Update window, select Enter Update Mode. Click OK.

4.        In the BMC 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 BMC 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/POWER9/p9eit/p9eit_update_firmware_bmc.htm

7.6  System I/O Firmware

System I/O devices have firmware that can be updated.  

Please see the IBM Knowledge Center for the 9006-12P and 9006-22P for applicable I/O firmware update information.

9006-12P:

http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER9/p9hdx/9006_12p_landing.htm

9006-22P:

http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER9/p9hdx/9006_22p_landing.htm

7.6.1 Embedded 12Gb SAS Controller, Microsemi Adaptec SmartIOC 2000 16i

To check the firmware version on this device, use the Microsemi Adaptec cli utility arcconf .  The command “arcconf getversion” will show information for all Microsemi Adaptec devices present on the machine.  If no other Microsemi Adaptec slot cards are installed, the embedded controller will have the controller ID of “1”.

Part # = PM8069

Description: Embedded 12Gb SAS Controller, Microsemi Adaptec SmartIOC 2000 16i

Minimum FW level: 4.02[0] (0)

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 and Web GUI Access

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.  

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 these LC 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.  These LC 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:

1. 1.The man page  

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

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

4. 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 -U ipmi_userid -P ipmi_password power on

3. Activate your IPMI console:

ipmitool -I lanplus -H bmc_ip_address  -U ipmi_userid -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 these LC 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 servers

This guide helps you install 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 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 these LC servers.

10.0 Change History