IBM Power8 Systems S812LC Server Firmware

Applies to:  S812LC (8348-21C)

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

1.1 Minimum ipmitool Code Level

1.2 Minimum Browser levels for BMC ASM (Advanced System Management) Console

1.3 Fix level Information on IBM Open Power Components and Operating systems

2.0 Important Information

3.0 Firmware Information

3.1 Firmware Information and Description 

4.0 Operating System Information

4.1 Linux Operating System

4.2 How to Determine the Level of a Linux Operating System

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

5.0 How to Determine The Currently Installed Firmware Level

6.0 Downloading the Firmware Package

7.0 Installing the Firmware

7.1 IBM Power Systems Firmware maintenance

7.2 Updating the System Firmware with ipmitool

7.2.1 Return codes from the ipmitool "hpm upgrade" command

7.3 Installing ipmitool on Ubuntu

7.4 Updating the System Firmware using the BMC Advanced System Management (ASM)

8.0 System Management and Virtualization

8.1 BMC Service Processor IPMI and ASM Access

8.2 Open Power Abstraction Layer (OPAL) Hypervisor

8.3 Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI)

8.4 Petitboot bootloader

8.5 KVM Options for Power LC servers

9.0 Quick Start Guide for Installing Linux on LC servers

10.0 Change History

 

 

 

1.0 Systems Affected

This package provides firmware for Power Systems LC S812LC (8348-21C)  server only.

The firmware level in this package is:

 

 Note:  

Before proceeding  with an update to this service pack level, update the OS to the latest fix level for its release as there is an important fix for the AST driver that, if not applied, could prevent the system from IPLing after the service pack is installed.  For Ubuntu level 16.04.1, there is no fix  for the AST driver, so the OS level must be upgraded to an approved OS level (see section “4.0 Operating System Information“) or the AST driver can be blacklisted/disabled using the below command.  The disable of  the AST driver will cause loss of output to the VGA console, so this must be considered before choosing this option:

  

 Ensure the "modprobe.blacklist=ast" parameter is set in your boot loader (grub).

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.  Open Power requires ipmitool level v1.8.15 to execute correctly on the OP810 firmware, especially the ipmitool code update function.

 

Note:  With ipmitool version 1.8.18,  SOL connections may get disconnected when there is no activity on SOL console. This can be fixed by passing "usesolkeepalive" option to sol activate command.  This is not an issue with ipmitool version 1.8.17 and earlier versions.

 

If ipmitool is being run from Ubuntu, the minimum level is 1.8.13-1ubuntu0.5 and should be obtained directly from the Ubuntu packages and not Source Forge (if you want to do in-band firmware updates from Ubuntu) as shown in the second example below.  The Source Forge version v1.8.15 loaded on Ubuntu would not be able to do the firmware update.  However,  there are other problems in 1.8.13-1ubuntu0.5 that affect functions that control the system.  If these other functions are the priority, use the Source Forge version of ipmitool for Ubuntu.

 

 Verify your ipmitool level on your linux workstation using the following commands:

 

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 the 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 such as Ubuntu 14.04.3:

 

sudo apt-get install ipmitool

 

1.2 Minimum Browser levels for BMC ASM (Advanced System Management) Console

The BMC ASM is a  web-based application that works within a browser.   Supported browsers are shown below with Chrome being the preferred browser:

  1. · Google Chrome Version 46.0.2490.71 m 

  2. · Mozilla Firefox version 41.0.3 

 

1.3 Fix level Information on IBM Open Power 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  S812LC at http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/HW4P4/p8hdx/8348_21c_landing.htm.

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.

 


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 update.hpm file updates the primary side of the PNOR and the primary side of the BMC only, leaving the golden sides unchanged.

Filename

Size

Checksum

8348_820.1923.20190613n_update.hpm

67109473

75704609345561e15dd8ed856e139929

 

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 8348_820..._update.hpm.  

 

After a successful update to the firmware level, the PNOR components and BMC should be at the following levels.  The ipmitool "fru" command can be used to display FRU ID 43 and the BMC command line command "cat" can be used to display the BMC level file  "cat /proc/ractrends/Helper/FwInf".

 

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 43 inventory list for driver:  

 

FRU Device Description : System Firmware (ID 43)

 

System Firmware:

 Product Name         :     OpenPOWER Firmware

 Product Version     :      IBM-habanero-OP8_v1.12_2.96

 Product Extra         :     op-build-v2.3-5-g98aa884

 Product Extra         :     buildroot-2019.02.1-16-ge01dcd0

 Product Extra         :     skiboot-v6.3.1

 Product Extra         :     hostboot-p8-c893515-pd6f049d

 Product Extra         :     occ-p8-a2856b7

 Product Extra         :     linux-5.0.7-openpower1-p8e31f00

 Product Extra         :     petitboot-v1.10.3

 Product Extra         :     machine-xml-c399

 

BMC Level:                        

 

display BMC FW level via ssh session on the BMC , using this cmd:

          #  cat /proc/ractrends/Helper/FwInfo  

 

BMC level for Habanero:

# cat /proc/ractrends/Helper/FwInfo

FW_VERSION=2.16.205393.65371

FW_DATE=Jun 13 2019

FW_BUILDTIME=11:15:14 CDT

FW_DESC=8348 P2 SRC RR9 06132019 TEST

FW_PRODUCTID=1

FW_RELEASEID=RR9

FW_CODEBASEVERSION=2.X

 

 

OP820
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

OP8_v1.12_2.96 / OP820.30

07/01/2019

 

Impact:  Security Severity: SPE

New features and functions for MTM 8348-21C

In response to recently reported security vulnerabilities, this firmware update is being released to address Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue numbers CVE-2017-5715, CVE-2017-5753, and CVE-2017-5754. Operating System updates are required in conjunction with this firmware level for CVE-2017-5753 and CVE-2017-5754. This replaces an earlier firmware update for the same problem which was found to not be effective.

 

Support was added for a Self-Boot Engine (SBE) validation during the IPL to verify that the firmware images are the shipped versions.

 

Added BMC support to be able to detect Self Boot Engine (SBE) SEEPROM corruption

 

Support has been removed from XIVE interrupt controller for the store EOI operation.  Hardware has limitations which would require a sync after each store EOI to make sure the MMIO operations that change the ESB state are ordered. This would be performance prohibitive and the PCI Host Bridges (PHBs) do not support the synchronization.

 

Support was added to recognize a port parameter in the URL path for the Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE) in the ethernet adapters.  Without the fix, there could be PXE discovery failures if a port was specified in the URL for the PXE.  

 

Support was added for HTTP(S) proxies when down-loading resources during the Petitboot.  For example, this allows the user to set HTTP(S) proxies for use when loading configuration or boot files.

 

Support for expanded time out options for the BMC web gui/KVM sessions. The old time out range (300 - 1800 seconds) has been changed as follows:

1. Increased the maximum timeout from 1800 seconds to 1296000 seconds, i.e., basically increased the maximum timeout to15 days.

2. Decreased the minimum timeout from 300 seconds to 0. If the timeout value is 0, then it is considered an infinite timeout. KVM will not timeout and that in-turn will also keep the BMC web gui running too.

 

Support for the  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3 OS as a OPAL bare-metal install.   For more information on the features delivered with RHEL7.3, see the Red Hat information portal:  https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en/red-hat-enterprise-linux/.

 

Support for a OPAL raw console to receive output from the PowerPC boot EPAPR (Embedded Power Architecture Platform Requirements) wrapper.  This allows decompression failures inside the wrapper caused by data corruption to be reported to the user.

 

Support for the CAPI Compression Accelerator Adapter with Feature Codes #EJ1A and #EJ1B and CCIN 2CF0.  This CAPI FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) adapter acts as a co-processor for the POWER8 processor chip handling specialized, repetitive function extremely efficiently. The adapter is preloaded with a GZIP application and is intended to run as a gzip accelerator.  The GZIP application maximum bandwidth is the PCIe3 interface bandwidth.  Use of the #EJ1A or #EJ1B adapter requires one  #EC2A CAPI activation feature per system.   This CAPI gzip feature does not run under PowerKVM but as a bare-metal install only for the following minimum Little Endian (LE) Linux distributions levels:

1) Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2

2) Ubuntu 14.04.5

3) Ubuntu 16.04.1

 

Support was added for detecting and logging a SEL for power supply fan faults and turning on the system attention LED.

 

Support was enhanced in the BMC LDAP configuration:

1) Added support for allowing the hostname in any of LDAP fields that currently only allow IP addresses.

2) Added support for BIND names greater than 64 characters.

 

Support was enhanced for the configuration of the System and Audit Log settings:

1) Log settings were enhanced to support  "local Logs" and "remote Logs" at the same time.

2) The "Server Address" field was enhanced to have a custom port number in addition to the default 514 port.

3) The Syslog System log was enhanced to support a TCP configuration in addition to the UDP configuration that was already supported.

 

Support was changed for the BMC SMTP configuration to remove the "machine name" field since a SMTP relay server cannot be configured.

 

Support was enhanced for the BMC SMTP configuration to allow the "Server Address" field to have a symbolic host name with a domain name or an IP address as was supported.

 

Support was enhanced for the BMC DNS configuration to allow host names to have a "." included in the name and to allow the host names to be greater than 15 characters.

 

System firmware changes that affect all systems

 

A security problem was fixed to prevent host programs from being able to corrupt the BMC using the internal software bridges between the host and BMC.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2019-6260.

 

A security problem was fixed to detect and prevent Self Boot Engine (SBE) SEEPROM corruption.   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2018-8931.

 

A problem was fixed for system hangs for early fails that occur in Hostboot.  With the fix, the early fails are handled and recovery attempted to allow the IPL to succeed.

 

A problem was fixed for the power capping range allowed for the user.  OCC provides two limits for minimum powercap. One being hard powercap minimum which is guaranteed by OCC and the other one is a soft powercap minimum which is lesser than hard-min and may or may not be asserted due to various power-thermal reasons. So to allow the users to access the entire powercap range, this fix exports soft powercap minimum as the “powercap-min” DT property. And it also adds a new DT property called “powercap-hard-min” to export the hard-min powercap limit.

 

A problem was fixed for lost output on the console when the OS is stopping or rebooting.  With the fix, the console output is always flushed before stopping the system.

 

A problem was fixed for the AST VGA device which could sometimes fail to initialize when the vendor ID for the device was parsed incorrectly.  

 

A problem was fixed for a system hang that could occur while printing with system debug options and having a active user on the console.

 

A problem was fixed for an intermittent opal-prd crash that can happen on the host OS.  This is the fault signature:  " opal-prd[2864]: unhandled signal 11 at 0000000000029320 nip 00000 00102012830 lr 0000000102016890 code 1"

 

A problem was fixed for diagnostic code trying to read sensor values for PCI Host Bridge (PHB) entries that are unused, which causes debug output to have incorrect values for the unused entries.  With the fix, only the used entries are processed by the diagnostic code.

 

A problem was fixed for Petitboot exiting to the shell with xCAT genesis in the menu when trying to do a network boot.  Petitboot was timing out when trying to access the ftpserver but it was not doing the network re-queries necessary for a proper retry.  If this error happens on a system, it can be made to boot with the following two steps:

1) Type the word "exit" and press enter key.  This brings it back to petitboot menu.

2) Press the enter key again to start the boot of the xCAT image.

 

A problem has been fixed for a slow start up of a process that can occur when the system had been previously in an idle state.

 

A problem has been fixed for a TOD error that can cause a soft lockup of the kernel.  A 'soft lockup' is defined as a bug that causes the kernel to loop in kernel mode for more than 20 seconds, without giving other tasks a chance to run. The current stack trace is displayed upon detection and, by default, the system will stay locked up.

 

A problem has been fixed to add part and serial numbers to the processors when accessed through the device tree.

 

A problem has been fixed to make the OS aware of the DARN random number generator at 0x00200000 PPC_FEATURE2_DARN) and the SCV syscall at 0x00100000 (PPC_FEATURE2_SCV).  Without this fix, these service constants are not defined in the OS userspace.

 

A problem was fixed for Coherent Accelerator Processor Proxy (CAPP) mode for the PCI Host Bridge (PHB) to improve DMA write performance by enabling channel tag streaming for the PHB.  With this enabled, the DMA write does not have to wait for a response before sending a new write command on the bus.

 

A problem was fixed for the Open-Power Flash tool "pflash" failing with a blocklevel_smart_erase error during a pflash.  This problem is infrequent and is triggered if pflash detects a smart erase fits entirely within one erase block.

 

A problem was fixed in the Petitboot user interface to handle cursor mode arrow keys for the VT100 'application' cursor to prevent mis-interpreting an arrow key as an escape key in some situations.  For more information on the VT100 cursor keys, see http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Keyboard-and-Console-HOWTO-21.html.

 

A problem was fixed in the Petitboot user interface to cancel the autoboot if the user has exited the Petitboot user interface.  This prevents the user dropping to the shell and then having the machine boot on them instead of waiting until the user is ready for the boot.

 

A problem was fixed in the Petitboot parsing of manually-specified configuration files that caused the parser to create file paths relative to the downloaded file's path, not the original remote path.

 

A problem was fixed for a flood of OPAL error messages that can occur for a processor fault.  The message "CPU ATTEMPT TO RE-ENTER FIRMWARE" appears as a large group of messages and precede the relevant error messages for the processor fault.  A reboot of the system is needed to recover from this error.

 

A problem was fixed for a skiboot hang that could occur rarely for a i2C request if the i2c  bus is in error or locked by the On-Chip Controller (OCC).

 

A problem was fixed for an OS reboot after a shutdown that intermittently fails after the shutdown.  This can happen if the BMC is not ready to receive commands.  With the fix, the messages to the BMC are validated and retried as needed.  To recover from this error, the system can be rebooted from the BMC interface.

 

A problem was fixed for a kernel hard lock up that could occur if IPMI synchronous messages were sent from the OS to BMC while the BMC was rebooting.  For these type of messages, a processor thread remains waiting in OPAL until a response is returned from the BMC.

 

A problem was fixed for systems losing performance and going into Safe mode (a power mode with reduced processor frequencies intended to protect the system from over-heating and excessive power consumption).   This happened  because of an On-Chip Controller (OCC) internal queue overflow. The problem has only been observed for systems running heavy workloads with maximum memory configurations (where every DIMM slot is populated - size of DIMM does not matter), but this may not be required to encounter the problem.  Recovery from Safe mode back to normal performance can be done with a re-IPL of the system.

 

A problem was fixed on the BMC for java applet failures when using the BMC JViewer.  To resolve the problem, the BMC JDK was updated.  The applet failures had the following message: "Error:  Unsigned application requesting unrestricted access to system.  The following resource is signed with a weak signature algorithm MD5withRSA and is treated as unsigned:  http://lc-pls1605c-con.wellsfargo.com:80/Java/release/JViewer.jar"

 

A problem was fixed for error handling in complete resets for the PCI Host Bridge (PHB).  During a complete reset, there can be a timeout waiting for a pending transaction, resulting in the PHB being marked as broken and the reset is not completed, leaving the adapters in an error state.  With the fix, the PHB is fenced and the Linux kernel can retry the complete reset

 

A problem was fixed for a missing device discovery message and overly verbose output messages during the boot.  It is now less verbose during the boot - only error-level messages are printed during Petitboot bootloader initialization.  This means that there will be fewer messages printed as the system boots. Additionally, the Petitboot user interface is started earlier in the boot process. This means that the user will be presented with the user interface sooner, but it may still take time, potentially up to 30 seconds, for the user interface to be populated with boot options as storage and network hardware is being initialized.  During this time, Petitboot will show the status message "Info: Waiting for device discovery".  When Petitboot device discovery is completed, the following status message will be shown "Info: Connected to pb-discover!".

 

A problem was fixed for Java error messages being displayed when logging into the BMC web gui.   The Remote Console Preview window is no longer displayed on the dashboard which was causing all the extra Java error messages.

 

A problem has been fixed for the system MAC address being cleared with zeroes on an AC power cycle.

 

A problem was fixed for "Preserve All Configuration" not working for the BMC web gui HPM firmware update.

 

A problem was fixed for not being able to change the IP address settings via Petitboot.  Fixed a timing issue with the BCM5421 Controller. Without this fix, the timing issue would lead to BMC not getting any network even though all the network parameters/configuration are proper.

 

A problem was fixed for a system unrecoverable error that could occur if a CAPI adapter has an error exception signal and hangs when processing it.  This is a rare problem that requires multiple error exceptions to the adapter in a short period of time, causing a deadlock in the adapter.

 

A problem was fixed for CAPI adapter errors that caused a system processor to be called out and guarded instead of the CAPI adapter unit.  The errors that cause this problem are the rare fatal adapter errors, so the problem should be infrequently seen.  With the fix, the failing CAPI adapter is guarded after the checkstop instead of the system processor.

 

A problem was fixed for looping error processing for some hardware failures where OPAL-PRD becomes unresponsive.  The loop has been fixed to prevent repeated error messages and system slow-down.  The error message "0xdeadbeefdeadbeef" was added so it is known when the error handling in OPAL-PRD has failed.

 

An error message was changed for a problem where the SLW (Sleep Winkle) timer gets stuck and the firmware falls back to OPAL pollers.  The previous error message was "Stuck with odd generation !".  The new message to the SOL console is "SLW : timer stuck, falling back to OPAL pollers.  You will likely have slower I2C and may have experienced increased jitter."  These messages can be safely ignored at this time until a future firmware release resolves the issue of the stuck timer.  The error only occurs when running test procedures that stress the hardware.

 

A problem was fixed for ipmitool "mc reset cold" failing to reset the the BMC service processor.  The ipmitool "mc reset cold" will stop working after the user issues power on when system is already on or after user tries to do power off when system is already powered off.  The problem circumvention is to run the ipmitool "mc reset warm" command to the BMC which will restart the service processor IPMI process and clear internal flags that are preventing "mc reset cold" from working.

 

A problem was fixed for slow IPMI Serial Over LAN (SOL) console connection to the server on the BMC.  The problem was triggered by an incorrect handling of the definition bits for VGA and serial console output.

 

A problem was fixed for the IPMI Serial Over LAN (SOL) console to the Petitboot user interface for the left and right arrow movements.  When editing the command line for the kernel, the user could not go to the start of the line and then go forward one character at a time.

 

A problem was fixed for the BMC integrated ethernet adapter BCM5421 connection speed being downgraded to 100 Mb/s instead of running at the expected 1000 Mb/s for the petitboot and the Linux OS.  After the fix is applied, an A/C power cycle of the system is needed to activate the fix.

 

A problem was fixed for a kexec-hardboot reboot of the system that caused USB devices to be lost.  A system power cycle is needed to recover the USB devices when this error occurs.

 

A problem was fixed for the shutdown of PCI devices that was causing spurious reboots of the system for a power off.  The  logical PCI devices are now removed during the shutdown.

 

A problem was fixed for failures that happen when multiple Hypervisor Virtual Console (HVC) are active at the same time.  On machines with more than one HVC console, any console after the first failed to register an interrupt handler since all consoles shared the same IRQ number.

 

A problem was fixed for fundamental PCI resets at boot time causing the PCI adapters to not be usable in the Linux OS.  No errors occur in the skiboot but the adapters are configurable once the OS is reached.  

 

A problem was fixed for time-out errors during the power off of PCI slots with  " Timeout powering off slot ... FIRENZE-PCI: Wrong state 00000000 on slot"

error message during a power off of the system.

 

A problem was fixed for the system remaining in "safe" mode after an On-Chip Controller (OCC) reset.  In "safe" mode, the system is running at reduced processor frequencies, affecting system performance.  The OCC reset is an error recovery command that can be requested by the BMC or OPAL for certain OCC errors.

 

A problem has been fixed for Fault LEDs returning to the off state after an AC cycle when a FRU had failed and was guarded.  With the fix, after an AC power cycle and next power on, the Fault LED will turn on again if the FRUs are guarded.

 

A problem has been fixed for a BMC cold reset that was not moving the BIOS from the golden side to the primary side.

 

A problem has been fixed for systems losing performance and going into safe mode because of On-Chip Controller (OCC) timeouts collecting Analog Power Subsystem Sweep (APSS) data.  This data is used by OCC to tune the processor frequency.  This problem occurs more frequently on systems with large configurations that are running heavy workloads.

 

A problem was fixed for a security issue on the BMC login.

  1.  

 

 

 

 

4.0 Operating System Information

IBM Power S812LC (8348-21C) server 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.  The supported versions of Linux on the IBM Power S812LC (8348-21C) server  are the following:

 

1) Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2, any subsequent updates

2) Ubuntu 14.04.3, and subsequent updates and releases

3) Ubuntu 16.04, and subsequent updates and releases

4) Ubuntu 18.04, and subsequent updates and releases

 

For virtualization options, the following levels of Linux may be used:

 

Red Hat virtualization:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2, any subsequent updates

 

Ubuntu KVM:

Ubuntu 14.04.5, and subsequent updates and releases

Ubuntu 16.04.1, and subsequent updates and releases

Ubuntu 18.04, and subsequent updates and releases

 

See the following distribution web sites for detailed information about the distributions:

For information about the PowerLinux Community, see the following website:

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/group/tpl

 

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:

 

 

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 Ubuntu, do a dpkg -l "opal-prd".  The output shows whether the package is installed on your system by marking it with ii (installed) and un (not installed).

 

This package provides a daemon to load and run the OpenPower firmware's Processor Recovery Diagnostics binary. This is responsible for runtime

maintenance of Power hardware.  

 

If the package is not installed on your system, the following command can be run on Ubuntu to install it:

sudo apt-get install opal-prd

5.0 How to Determine The Currently Installed Firmware Level

 

Use the ipmtool "fru" command or the BMC Advanced System Management (ASM) FRU option to look at product details of FRU 43.

 

ipmitool -I lanplus -H <bmc host IP address> -P admin -U ADMIN fru

 

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

Note:  Before proceeding  with an update to this service pack level, update the OS to the latest fix level for its release as there is an important fix for the AST driver that, if not applied, could prevent the system from IPLing after the service pack is installed.  For Ubuntu level 16.04.1, there is no fix  for the AST driver, so the OS level must be upgraded to an approved OS level (see section “4.0 Operating System Information“) or the AST driver can be blacklisted/disabled using the below command.  The disable of  the AST driver will cause loss of output to the VGA console, so this must be considered before choosing this option.

  

 Ensure the "modprobe.blacklist=ast" parameter is set in your boot loader (grub).

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.

 

Run this command "hpm check" before starting an update to understand what is going to be updated:

 

 ipmitool -H <BMC IP> -U ADMIN -I lanplus -P admin hpm check <xxxxx.hpm>

 

7.2 Updating the System Firmware with ipmitool

Firmware update steps for the LC servers can be managed via the command line with ipmitool command.

  1) Power off the machine - install code from Standby Power state:

– ipmitool -H <hostname> -I lanplus -U ADMIN -P admin chassis power off

  2) Issue bmc reset (establish stable the starting point)

– ipmitool -H <BMC IP> -I lanplus -U ADMIN -P admin mc reset cold

  3) Run the following commands to flash the BMC and firmware (command protects BMC memory content, avoid losing network settings) :

– ipmitool -H <BMC IP> -I lanplus -U ADMIN -P admin raw 0x32 0xba 0x18 0x00

ipmitool -H <BMC IP> -U ADMIN -I lanplus -P admin -z 30000 hpm upgrade <xxxxx.hpm>  force

  4) If the BMC network settings get lost it is possible to restore them with the following command line steps:

     a) Get serial connect to the BMC

     b) Login and execute the following commands to setup the network:

– /usr/local/bin/ipmitool -H 127.0.0.1 -I lanplus -U ADMIN -P admin lan set 1 ipsrc static

 – /usr/local/bin/ipmitool -H 127.0.0.1 -I lanplus  -U ADMIN -P admin lan set 1 ipaddr x.x.x.x

 – /usr/local/bin/ipmitool -H 127.0.0.1 -I lanplus -U ADMIN -P admin lan set 1 netmask 255.255.x.x

 – /usr/local/bin/ipmitool -H 127.0.0.1 -I lanplus -U ADMIN -P admin lan set 1 defgw ipaddr x.x.x.x

 

  5) Attention: if you experience a segmentation fault error during the code update - try the command again and change the block size 30000 to 25000.

  6) Power on and IPL the machine:

 – ipmitool -H <hostname> -I lanplus -U ADMIN -P admin chassis power on

7.2.1 Return codes from the ipmitool "hpm upgrade" command

The "hpm upgrade"  returns a "0" return code on success and a "-1" return code for any type of failure.  To get more error information, the user must go to the /var/log/notice.log on the system where the ipmitool was run and there will be an error message that corresponds to the "-1" returned in the ipmitool.  Below are possible error messages that can be generated for a failure in the command:

 

HpmfwupgValidateImageIntegrity:  Validate Image failure = "Invalid MD5 signature" or "Invalid image signature" or  "Unrecognized image version" or " Invalid header checksum".

 

HpmfwupgPreparationStage:  Performing Preparation Stage =  "Invalid image file for manufacturer",  Invalid image file for product ,  Invalid device ID

             Version not compatible for upgrade ="Version: Major x1,  Minor: y1  Not compatible with  Version: Major: x2 Minor:  y2"

 

HpmfwupgPreUpgradeCheck:  Pre-upgrade check

 

HpmfwupgUpgradeStage:  Upgrade Stage - Activation = "Self test failed:  Result1 = xx, Result2 = yy"

 

7.3  Installing ipmitool on Ubuntu

Open Power requires Source Forge ipmitool level v1.8.15 to execute correctly on the OP810 firmware.  This works fine unless there is a need to in-band firmware update from the Ubuntu host.  For this, the level of ipmitool from the Ubuntu packages must be installed.  The next step shows how to install ipmitool 1.8.13-1ubuntu0.5  from Ubuntu 14.04.3 to enable in-band code update support for the LC servers:

 

 sudo apt-get install ipmitool

 

7.4  Updating the System Firmware using the BMC Advanced System Management (ASM)

One method to update the System Firmware on the LC server is to use the Advanced System Management browser GUI.  The Chrome browser must be used for this method as there are problems in this release with using Firefox or IE where the firmware update will fail.  The update must be done with the system powered off.

1)  First you have to connect to the BMC Service Processor Interface. Use your browser and access the BMC service processor with it's configured IP address.

2)  After the successful login, the "Advanced System Management Dashboard" will be displayed. This is the common screen for multiple activities that can be performed such as configuration, FRU information and firmware updates. General information regarding the current power consumption, sensor monitoring, event logs is displayed.

3)  The next step is to select the Firmware Update Menu.

4)  Then select the correct firmware update image type. Please select the HPM type for firmware updates. This is the only type that will be provided by the IBM Fix Central site which would have been downloaded to your workstation earlier.

5)  Now select the firmware update file from where it was stored when down loaded to the web browser.

6)  When the correct firmware image is selected,  the GUI will show a list of components that will be updated. By default all the components will be selected. When the Proceed button is pressed, the firmware update will finally be performed

7)  After the firmware is completed, the System will perform a reboot.

 

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 POWER8 processor and memory buffer modules. Open power application layer (OPAL) is the system firmware in the stack of POWER8 processor-based Linux-only servers.

 

8.1  BMC Service Processor IPMI and ASM 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 Advanced System Management (ASM) console.  The ASM 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 ASM.  For more information on using the BMC ASM, see the IBM Redbook PDF file for the  IBM Power System S812LC Technical Overview and Introduction - section 3.4 Serviceability" ,  http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/pdfs/redp5284.pdf.

 

8.2 Open Power Abstraction Layer (OPAL) Hypervisor

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

For the 8348-21C only the OPAL Bare Metal (EC16) is available.

 

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. It is the default console to use when you configure PowerKVM.  The LC server provides 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 example, in Ubuntu, use this command:

$ sudo apt-get install ipmitool

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)  The man page

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

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

4)  For  a list of common ipmitool commands and help on each, you may use the following link:  
www-01.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 fsp_ip_address -P ipmi_password power on

3. Activate your IPMI console:

ipmitool -I lanplus -H fsp_ip_address -P ipmi_password sol activate

For more help with configuring IBM PowerKVM on a Linux on Power Systems server see the

following:

https://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/linuxonibm/liabp/liabpusingipmi.htm

Also, see the Quick Start Guide for Configuring IBM PowerKVM on Power Systems here:

https://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/api/content/nl/en-us/linuxonibm/liabq/kvmquickstart_guide.pdf

 

8.4 Petitboot bootloader

Petitboot is a kexec based bootloader used by IBM POWER8 systems configured with PowerKVM.

After the POWER8 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-01.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-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/linuxonibm/liabp/liabppetitbootconfig.htm

 

After you select to boot the PowerKVM installer, the installer wizard 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

 

8.5 KVM Options for Power LC servers

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a cross-platform, open source hypervisor that provides enterprise-class performance, scalability and security to run Linux and other workloads on a range of processor architectures.  For the 8001 servers, Ubuntu KVM or Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV)  may be installed on top of a bare-metal install of Ubuntu or RHEL, respectively.

 

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) for IBM Power is an enterprise virtualization product produced by Red Hat, based on the KVM hypervisor. For more information, go to this link on the Red Hat portal:

 

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Virtualization/3.6/html/Release_Notes/chap-RHEV_for_IBM_Power.html

 

Ubuntu KVM is configured by installing the missing virtualization packages (qemu-user qemu-utils cloud-image-utils qemu-system-ppc qemu-slof libvirt-bin numactl); adding users in a KVM group; disabling the SMT mode of the cpu using the ppc64_cpu tool; and enabling the KVM module in the kernel.  For more information on how to complete these steps, refer to this link in the Ubuntu wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ppc64el/CommonQuestions#How_to_use_Ubuntu_as_a_hypervisor.3F  

 

Note: Power 8001 servers and their KVM options do not support AIX or IBM i guest VMs and cannot be managed by a HMC

 

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

https://hardware.redhat.com/.

 

9.0 Quick Start Guide for Installing Linux on LC servers

This guide helps you install Ubuntu on a Linux on Power Systems server.

Overview

Use the information found in http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/linuxonibm/liabw/liabwkickoff.htm to install Linux, in this case Ubuntu, on a non-virtualized or bare metal IBM Power LC server. The Ubuntu installer is available for download for specific Linux on Power Systems. For information about which systems support Ubuntu, see Supported Linux distributions for POWER8 Linux on Power systems at https://ibm.biz/BdEH5t.

 

 

10.0 Change History

Date

Description

07/01/2019

New for LC server OP820.30 release