HMC Advanced Management

Updating the Hardware Management Console

The hardware management console is responsible for managing one or more managed systems. As such, it can be an important part of your infrastructure. If you are not comfortable performing these steps, or if you want to make sure you’re not missing any steps, I would suggest creating a Service Request with IBM.

For the purposes of this demonstration, I will be upgrading the HMC ver 8.x to 9.1. The first thing you will need to do is to download HMC v9.1 for your specific architecture.

Model 7063/ppc: Upgrading the HMC from verions 8.8.7.0 to V9R1
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/687981

Model 7042/x86: Upgrading the HMC from version 8.8.6 or Later to Version 9
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/687971

The steps are pretty much identical, with only slight differences. As you are dealing with different architectures, the images will be different. For the 7063/ppc type, you will additionally have to download and update some firmware.

Step 1: Check that you have met the pre-requisites first.

X86 – 7042-CR7, 7042-CR8, 7042-CR9, 7042-OE1, 7042-OE2
PPC – 7063-CR1

Step 2: Verify HMC minimum level and that the “Upgrade iFix” is applied. Minimum HMC levels required for upgrade: (from hmc cli, run lshmc -v and lshmc -V) or use the HMC GUI.

HMC 8.8.6 + SP1 (or supersede)
HMC 8.8.7 + mandatory fix (MH01706/MH01707) or supersede

Assuming steps 1 and 2 pass, you can now proceed to moving on to get the actual files. You can perform the upgrade of the network, or you may wish to grab the .iso file and EITHER burn it to optical media (using dvd-r) or prepare it on a USB flash drive.

If going with the iso option, you will want to download one of the following (depending on hmc architecture):

If planning on using the Network to perform the HMC upgrade, you can either use the IBM site, or you can connect to the IBM site and download the files to a locally available network server. NOTE: you may not be able to upgrade the HMC over the network (using IBM resources), if the HMC is not allowed / configured for internet access. You could however, download the files in advance and place on a local network server that is accessible via the HMC.

The URLs provided at the start show the individual steps for whichever option you go with.

Once you have decided on roll-out method, and prepared your environment (could be burned ISO to disk/usb, planning to use local network or IBM network) you’ll want to first reboot the HMC. This step ensures that you started on in a known good configuration.

Next, you’ll want to backup the HMC profiles. From hmc cli run the command: lssyscfg -r sys -F type_model*serial_num | while read machine; do bkprofdata -m "$machine" -f Beforeupgrade$(date +%Y%m%d) ; done

Save Upgrade Data

Typically this is done to an USB Flash drive, as issues with the upgrade process could inadvertently delete your old profiles. Typically one uses a 4-8GB fat32 formatted (one partition only), non-encrypted USB flash drive.

Run lsmediadev to confirm the USB Flash drive was successfully mounted. Then run the command saveupgdata -r diskusb. That command will backup to local disk AND also to the mounted USB Flash Drive. If the save process was successful, it should of written the following five files to the USB Flash Drive:

ACMSaveData.tar
RSCTSaveUpgrade.tar
SaveCCFWUpgradeData.tar
SaveHSCSystemUpgradeData.tar
SaveProfileDataUpgrade.tar

This can be validated with:
ls -la <disk_mount_point_from_lsmediadev_command_above> from the cli.

Note: The command above does NOT always show files in the directory, even though they were successfully save. To be safe, unplug the USB Flash Drive, plug it into a computer and validate the 5 files are there (and not 0 bytes).

If installing via DVD/USB:

Insert media (DVD or USB Flash Drive)
Reboot the HMC: From restricted Shell: shutdown -r -t now OR reboot from the HMC Gui.
For X86 HMCs, you will have to hit the boot menu (F12) and select to boot from DVD or USB Flash Drive (depending on what you prepared)
for PPC, the system will boot into the petitboot menu. Hit the up cursor first, otherwise, the countdown may force it to book from the local disk. For DVD select the menu entry: “Install Hardware Management Console” under the CD/DVD device heading. (May take up to a minute to show up)
for USB, select “Install Hardware Management Console” under the USB device heading.
Hi-light Next, and hit continue (using space bar or enter key)
Select the option: “Upgrade to a new version”
Hi-light next and hit enter/spacebar
Click finish, and hit spacebar/enter to continue with the upgrade process

NOTE: The above steps can take a few minutes to over an hour.

Once the HMC is upgraded to v9.1.0 you will want to install the required fix(es). Afterwords, you can move on to installing any required Service Pack installs.

Install FIX

The fix is required to rectify a space issue, as attempting to install a SP w/o the fix can lead to disastrous consequences, and additional work.

A local network server helps with installing the fixes and SPs. You could alternatively use the IBM site to install these fixes. In this example case, the required files were previously downloaded from IBM’s website, and placed on a local network server. Then the following was done:

open restricted shell
for 7063/ppc model: updhmc -t ftp -h myserver -u myuid -p mypass -r -f <my_ftp_directory>/MH01814_ppc.iso
for 7042/x86 model: updhmc -t ftp -h myserver -u myuid -p mypass -r -f <my_ftp_directory>/MH01813_x86.iso
Reboot the HMC (as in rsh already, run hmcshutdown -r -t now

Install Service Pack

open restricted shell
for 7063/ppc model: updhmc -t ftp -h myserver -u myuid -p mypass -r -f <my_ftp_directory>/HMC_Update_V9R1M931_ppc.iso
for 7042/x86 model: updhmc -t ftp -h myserver -u myuid -p mypass -r -f <my_ftp_directory>/HMC_Update_V9R1M931_x86.iso

One or more reboots will happen to complete this process. For hmc x86 types, this concludes the HMC upgrade process. You can confirm that by opening a restricted shell and running the following two commands:

lshmc -v
lshmc -V

For HMC ppc types, there is an additional step to install specific HMC Firmware.

HMC 7063/ppc Firmware Upgrade

By default, if the firmware hasn’t been updated before, it is in the v1.x levels. As such, due to the changes to the firmware, the HMC has to be powered off to apply the updates. By default the BMC/IPMI uses a dynamic IP address, doled out from the HMC. However, for us to apply these updates the HMC has to be powered down, and as such the HMC DHCP service won’t be operational.

Login to HMC
Navigate to Console Management, and change the BMC/IPMI to a network static IP address (probably default) on the same private network. Make note of this IP address.

The BMC/IPMI firmware has to be upgraded. This is done on the hmc private network. You may/may not have the appropriate infrastructure configured to accomplish this. For my example test, that infrastructure wasn’t in place, so the following steps were done:

Download the required firmware to laptop
Power Down HMC
Disconnect eth cables from hmc’s eth0/eth1 ports (eth0 is private network)
Identical looking cables, so marked one of the cables to know it was for the private network
Connect a 8-port 1GB network switch to power
Connect 1 eth patch cable to laptop, connect another patch cable to eth0 on HMC (the private network)
Configured laptop to have a static IP on the same network segment
Open web browser, and navigate to: https://<static_ip_you_set_for_bmc/ipmi_earler>
Login with username password (defaults): ADMIN/ADMIN
Collect existing Firmware levels from Web Interface
Update BMC in the web interface (the .bin file is the BMC Image)
Confirm BMC firmware was updated (after interface auto-rebooted)
Update Power Firmware Image (the .pnor file)
Power off HMC
Disconnect network switch, and all patch cables
Replace eth network cables into eth0/eth1 on HMC (cable marking helped here)
Power-on HMC

The firmware updates will probably reboot the HMC 3-5 times, and at times you’ll probably notice invalid CRC or some other errors. When the system is finally upgraded properly, it will boot into the petitboot menu. You can boot it up normally now (will time out if no keys are pressed).

Log-in to the BMC/IPMI interface (via https address, or from within the HMC, Console Settings “Launch BM/IPMI Login”.

Confirm Firmware levels have been upgraded.

Congratulations, HMC firmware completed successfully.