john.parnefjord.se Reflections & findings

Updating BIOS and firmware on the server should be done just as the operative system is updated. Earlier most updates were installed using an ordinary floppy, but nowadays most servers are shipped without any floppy drive installed (but some of the firmware countinous to be released as floppy images). A lot of the updates are distributed as packages adapted for different operative systems, which most of the time means Windows, RedHat and Suse as they are officially supported by most vendors. IBM is no exception to this.

Anyway, I updated the BIOS on some IBM X3950 with Debian Etch as OS without any problems. I just donwloaded the BIOS firmware from the IBM site:

http://www-304.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-66901&brandind=5000008

You might find the right download for your server by choosing you server model:

http://www-304.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/selectproduct?taskind=2&brandind=5000008&familyind=5305593&typeind=5327056&modelind=5327069&osind=0&psid=bm&continue.x=1&matrix=Y

If you're not sure exactly what server you have use dmidecode to find out your model. Install the program to start with:

server:~# aptitude install dmidecode

Then run dmidecode:

server:~/bios# dmidecode | grep "Product Name"
        Product Name: IBM x3950-[88783RG]-
        Product Name: Node1 Processor Card
        Product Name: Node1 Native I/O Planar
        Product Name: Node1 PCI I/O Planar
        Product Name: Node1 Memory Card1
        Product Name: Node1 Memory Card2
        Product Name: Node1 Memory Card3
        Product Name: Node1 Memory Card4

The file I downloaded was ibm_fw_bios_zse122a_linux_intel32.sh.

Create a directory to hold the files from the update:

server:~# mkdir bios
server:~# mv ibm_fw_bios_zse122a_linux_intel32.sh bios/
server:~# cd bios/

Unpack the files from the update file:

server:~# chmod 755 ibm_fw_bios_zse122a_linux_intel32.sh
server:~# ./ibm_fw_bios_zse122a_linux_intel32.sh -x

The follwing files should now be available:

server:~/bios# ls -l
total 2872
-rwxr--r-- 1 user group  524288 2008-07-29 13:19 0069000.FLS
-rwxr--r-- 1 user group 65536 2008-07-29 13:19 CMOSDEF.BIN
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user group 1043884 2008-07-29 12:15 ibm_fw_bios_zse122a_linux_intel32.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user group 357517 2008-07-29 13:19 lflash
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user group 777761 2008-07-29 13:19 lflash64
-rwxr--r-- 1 user group 131072 2008-07-29 13:19 PXEROM.BIN
-rwxr--r-- 1 user group 9109 2008-07-29 13:19 readme.lin

The files that should be run to install the BIOS firmware is either lflash or lflash64. lflash is used on 32-bit systems and lflash64 on 64-bit systems. As I'm running a 64-bit version of Debian Etch I ran lflash64. Just:

server:~# ./lflash64

After this reboot the server and check that the BIOS has the new version.