I/O adapters that are configured to run in Single Root
I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) mode are managed by system firmware and
adapter firmware. Both system firmware and adapter firmware for the
SR-IOV adapter are downloaded with the normal system firmware updates,
but must be manually applied to the system and adapter by using the
Hardware Management Console (HMC) command line.
The system firmware that supports SR-IOV adapters includes
the system firmware that is used for configuring and managing the
adapter and the I/O adapter firmware. These types of SR-IOV firmware
are automatically updated to the current level of the adapter firmware
that is available when the adapter is configured to run in SR-IOV
mode. They are also updated automatically during maintenance operations,
such as when the adapter is stopped or replaced.
The update
process for the SR-IOV adapters is similar to the update process of
other system firmware. If you update the overall system firmware,
the system firmware update might contain system firmware for the SR-IOV
adapters, adapter firmware updates, or both. Adapters that are configured
in SR-IOV mode are not updated automatically to use the new firmware
updates, because of a temporary I/O outage that occurs when the firmware
is updated. This outage lasts approximately 30 seconds when you update
only the system firmware, and approximately 2.5 minutes when you update
both the system firmware and the adapter firmware.
You can
manually activate the available SR-IOV firmware updates by using the
HMC command line. To activate firmware updates, complete the following
steps:
Note: This procedure only applies to the following IBM® POWER7® processor-based
servers:
- IBM Power® 770 (9117-MMD)
- IBM Power 780 (9179-MHD)
- IBM Power ESE (8412-EAD)
- To identify which SR-IOV adapters
have available updates:
startdump -m system_name -t resource -r "sriovdebug -fwinfo"
The output is sent to a dump file in the /dump directory
that is titled
RSCDUMP.<serial_number>.<dump_id>.<timestamp>.
The contents of the file contains a section of information for each adapter that is running in
SR-IOV mode. The section for each adapter is identified by its Slot location
code. Use the following list to determine the state of the updates for each adapter that
is listed.- No updates are available for an adapter when the following conditions are met:
- There is text at the end of the command output for that adapter that states there are no adapter
system firmware updates for the adapter in the specified location.
- The version number that is displayed in the Current Version running
output for that adapter is the same as the version number that is displayed in the
Adjunct Firmware image output for that adapter.
- System adapter firmware updates are available for an adapter when the text at the end of the
command output for the adapter states that there are system adapter firmware updates for the adapter
in the specified location.
- Adapter firmware updates are available for an adapter when the value of the
Current version running for that adapter is not the same as the value
of the Adjunct Firmware image for that adapter.
If updates are available, you can update the system firmware
and the adapter firmware or only the system firmware. You can also
update all of the adapters at the same time, or specify a single adapter
to update.
- Choose one of the following options that corresponds to
the firmware that you want to update:
- To update the system firmware and the adapter firmware for an
SR-IOV adapter, enter one of the following commands. Updating the
system firmware and the adapter firmware results in a nominal 2.5
minute I/O outage of the adapter during the update.
- startdump -m system_name -t resource -r "sriov all
updateadapter"
This command updates the system firmware and adapter firmware for all of
the adapters.
- startdump -m system_name -t resource -r "sriov
slot_location_code updateadapter"
This command updates the system
firmware and adapter firmware only for the adapter that is specified by the
slot_location_code parameter.
- To update only the system firmware for the selected SR-IOV adapter
or for all of your SR-IOV adapters, enter one of the following commands.
Updating only the system firmware results in a nominal 30 second I/O
outage for the adapter during the update.
- To verify that the updates completed successfully, run the following command:
startdump -m system_name -t resource -r "sriovdebug -fwinfo"
The output is sent to a dump file in the /dump directory
that is titled
RSCDUMP.<serial_number>.<dump_id>.<timestamp>.
The contents of the file contains a section of information for each adapter that is running in
SR-IOV mode. The section for each adapter is identified by its Slot location
code. The output of the command displays the updated information about the SR-IOV
adapters. Depending on which firmware you updated, the adapters with the updated firmware satisfy
either the criteria of no available updates or the criterion of having only available adapter
firmware updates. These criteria are shown in step 1.
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