IPMI card stops responding after the Linux OS crashes
Problem:
IPMI card stops responding after the Linux OS crashes
Affected Platforms:
- Omega 8110
- Omega 8114
- Omega 8115
- Omega 8116
Details:
When the Linux OS crashes, the IPMI card will become unreachable after about 15-20 minutes. This is caused by a bug in the Broadcom NIC firmwar.
Solution:
Broadcom has provided an upgraded firmware to resolve this issue. Floppy images for performing the updates are available here:
http://updates.aslab.com/bios/supermicro/IPMI/h8ssl/
- h8ssl_ipmi.img - Latest H8SSL IPMI firmware
- h8ssl_bcm_341.img - Broadcom NIC firmware
Create the update floppies using dd:
dd if=h8ssl_ipmi.img of=/dev/fd0 dd if=h8ssl_bcm_341.img of=/dev/fd0
Perform the IPMI firmware upgrade first. Afterwards, verify that the IPMI card is still functioning correctly. Before updating the NIC firmware, write down the MAC addresses of the two Gigabit ports. They will need to be entered during the upgrade. A label containing the addresses can be found inside the chassis affixed to the lan ports. Alternatively, they can be found using ifconfig under Linux.
Boot the NIC firmware floppy. When the DOS prompt appears, run the h8ssl.bat script to flash the firmware. Enter the MAC addresses when asked. Only the numbers are entered, not the colons.