UCS C220 M3 firmware update problems.

[matlocktr]

Hello,

I have Cisco UCS C220 M3 server and i wish to update it's bios.

I've downloaded the latest UCS Update HUU from website. 

The filename is ucs-c220-huu-3.0.3e.iso 

I burn to cd and start the update process, The cd updates cimc, LSI raid card and Intel Storage firmware successfully,.  

And at last, when the system wants to update the BIOS firmware, the process starts updating and after than server goes power off. 

Server does not come back about 30 minutes and i restarted the server manually but the server goes power cycle , off and on..  No luck to open server. 

I've old bios update file named C220-BIOS-2-0-13a-0.cap , i flashed this file from CIMC bios update page and server comes back online again.. 

I've tried 3 times with a flash usb drive, harddisk drive, and a cd drive. But no luck, i cant update my bios 3.0.3a.0 .. But i allready updated CIMC , LSI card and Intel storage onboard.

My question is, i hope i need the firmware bios file for flash from CIMC manually, but the cd does not contain any ZIP file , where can i download only bios with version 3.0.3a.0 for UCS C220 M3 ? 

Thank you.

[Walter Dey · Accepted solution]

getfw
- A Linux based command line utility to extract CIMC and BIOS firmware from HUU ISO image.

Help:

Usage: getfw {-b -c -C -H -S -V -h} [-s SRC] [-d DEST]

-b : Get BIOS Firmware

-c : get CIMC Firmware

-C : Get CMC Firmware

-H : Get HDD Firmware

-S : Get SAS Firmware

-V : Get VIC Firmware

-h : Display Help

-s SRC : Source of HUU ISO image

-d DEST : Destination to keep Firmware/s

Note : Default BIOS & CIMC get extracted

Examples:

To print help message: ./getfw -h

To get BIOS FW: ./getfw -b -s HUU_ISO_IMAGE -d Dest_Path

To get CIMC FW: ./getfw -c -s HUU_ISO_IMAGE -d Dest_path

To get Both FWs: ./getfw -b -c -s HUU_ISO_IMAGE -d Dest_Path

./getfw -s HUU_ISO_IMAGE -d Dest_Path
Steps:
- Mount HUU ISO image.

- Get binary from GETFW directory and use locally.

Dependencies:
- Openssl must be installed in the target system.
- Squashfs kernel module must be loaded in the target system.

[brlok]

how to install CIMC, BIOS, VIC, LSI firmware at Linux OS level instead of booting from HUU?

[matlocktr]

Mr. Walter Dey,
I forgot to thank you! Sorry for that.
Thank you again, you save my server :)

[ewright82]

I have this exact issue.  Were you able to resolve this?

[matlocktr]

Yes i've resolved using the getfw utility.

Download iso, extract in another Linux machine.

use the getfw tool to extract iso .bin file and others.

And update the server from CIMC (Remote management) page..

Everything is fine.. :) 

[Ashley Lester]

Here is a write up that lays out the multiple ways to update the firmware on the various components; either through booting the HUU image or extracting the contents and applying individually via getFW utility.  Note that its geared towards a c240M4; but the procedure is relatively the same across the many UCS hardware types:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/c/sw/cli/config/guide/3_0/b_Cisco_UCS_C-Series_CLI_Configuration_Guide_301/b_Cisco_UCS_C-Series_CLI_Configuration_Guide_201_chapter_01101.pdf

[Jeffrey Foster]

I would suggest the process of booting HUU and running 'Update All' since this will update all the platform components to the same version to ensure that the recipe of FW stays compliant with the Hardware Compatibility Tool. The HUU is designed to update all platform firmware. If you extract just the BMC BIN and BIOS CAP files, that will leave some components down-rev. 

[Kirk J]

Jeff is absolutely correct.

The getfw process should not be considered an alternate method, but a stop gap method, in the circumstances where the CIMC is having issues processing the HUU.

Customers I've worked with that try to use methods other than the HUU as their standard process for updating stand alone servers inevitably have various components that have been left out, and trigger issues later on.

Kirk...

[aarondailey]

Do customers usually update the HDD firmware too?  Or skip this?  Documentation states it could result in data loss.  Just curious as we'll be updating some OLD M3s.  

[Kirk J]

Many customer's unfortunately leave out that step.

You do want to upgrade the harddrive firmware as harddrive firmware fixes tend to fix issues like timeouts, error reporting, etc.

The few cases I'm aware of where drive firmware ran into issues, involved other root problems such as power loss during upgrade, corrupted sas communication (i.e. backplane problems, raid controller failure, etc)

Kirk...