| Sun Fire B10n Content Load Balancing Blade Version 1.1 Administration Guide |    
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| Sun Fire B10n Content Load Balancing Blade Version 1.1 Administration Guide |
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| C H A P T E R 7 |
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Updating the Application Software and the BSC Firmware |
This chapter tells you how to upgrade the software and firmware on one or more Sun Fire B10n blades. It also tells you how to set up a TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) server if you do not already have one set up on your network. The software upgrade procedures require you to use TFTP.
The BSC on each blade server is a management agent for the System Controller. It communicates information about the blade server it resides in to the System Controller. It also receives and processes any commands that you type into the System Controller's command-line interface.
Follow the instructions in this chapter if you have been advised by a Sun support engineer to download new firmware onto a System Controller, blade server, or integrated switch.
The procedures for upgrading software for the Sun Fire B10n blade involve using TFTP. This means that to perform them you need to have a TFTP server available on your network.
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Note - If you are using separated data and management networks, you need a TFTP server available on both networks. |
To configure a Solaris system on your network to serve TFTP requests, do the following:
1. On the system that you intend to set up as the TFTP server, log in as root.
2. Use a text editor to un-comment the following line in the file /etc/inetd.conf:
3. On the same system create a TFTP home directory by typing the following at the Solaris prompt:
5. Verify that TFTP is working.
To do this, use TFTP to get a file from the /tftpboot directory. Follow the instructions below:
a. On the system that you are using as the TFTP server, copy any file (for example, the Solaris /etc/release file) to the /tftpboot directory.
Type the following command at the Solaris prompt:
Where filename is the name of the file you intend to make available on the TFTP server.
b. Make the file you have just copied read-only:
Where filename is the name of the file you intend to make available on the TFTP server.
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Note - TFTP is not the same as FTP. It does not display the same error messages as FTP, and you cannot use the cd or ls commands (or indeed most other commands) that FTP allows you to use. |
The Sun Fire B10n blade provides optimized server to client response. To support this response and provide tight communications between the content load balancing blade and the B1600 blade servers a software module must be installed on each of these servers. This software module is referred to as the Blade Server Module and is loaded using the Solaris package add (pkgadd) process.
The content load balancing blade is based on specialized hardware including a general purpose microprocessor that runs a real time operating system. The code that runs on this processor is called the Application Software and can be updated using a TFTP process.
In addition to the general purpose processor there is a micro controller called the Blade Support Controller (BSC). The BSC is the primary interface to the Sun Fire B1600 Service Controllers (SC) and performs the Advanced Lights-out Management (ALOM) function for a given blade. These functions include powering on and off of the blades as well as monitoring functions. This is referred to as the BSC Firmware and can be updated using the "flashupdate" command which involves using TFTP.
The Sun Fire B10n software components:
The B10n has the capability to hold two versions of the Application Software and a diagnostic image. This allows a new image to be loaded without overwriting the active image. The blade must be rebooted to activate an image. See Choosing the Boot Image.
The B10n specialized hardware includes a rule based classification engine. The rules are entered through the command line interface and then compiled using a build process. See Creating an HTTP Load Balancing Rule.
Check the following web site to ensure you have the latest Sun Fire B10n software:
http://wwws.sun.com/software/download/network.html
See Updating the B10n Software for instructions on checking the version of the software you are currently using.
The components that need to be upgraded to the 1.1 version are:
2. The B10n application software consisting of the boot image and the bootrom
A 1.1 image is compatible with a 1.0 configuration file
The components that need to be downgraded to the 1.0 version are:
2. The B10n application software consisting of the boot image and the bootrom
A 1.0 image is not fully compatible with a 1.1 configuration file because of the new features supported in the 1.1 release. So it is recommended that a 1.0 image be run with a 1.0 configuration file.
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Note - Before upgrading to the new release, always make a backup of the current configuration so it can be used if a downgrade is required. |
The B10n software can be loaded with three different images and booted. The three images are image 1, image 2, and diag. These images denote software versions.
Before you update the software, use the show system command to see which software version is currently active:
You can upgrade the software either interactively or noninteractively.
To load to image location 1, the blade expects image sunfire_b10n.1.1.8 to be available in the TFTP server.
Using the TFTP server from the server controller enter the following command:
Where S indicates the slot and n is the number of the slot containing the blade you want to update. Valid slot numbers range from 0 to 15.
The following example shows the TFTP IP address as 10.4.128.103 and the file as /tftpboot/FRU/bsc-rel/scg-nrst-03.flash, updating the blade in slot 4. It also shows the messages that are returned and prompts:
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1. As admin, enter the following command and respond to the prompts:
The system returns the following output:
Downloading file bootrom.1.1.7.bin using TFTP ... 316392 Verifying checksum ... Done Downloaded image version 1.1.7_brom Image successfully downloaded. |
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As admin, enter the following command and respond to the prompts:
The system returns the following output:
file exist! will overwrite /RFA0/BOOTIMAGE/boot_image_1 Start downloading sunfire_b10n.1.1.7... using TFTP Transferring and writing to file /RFA0/BOOTIMAGE/boot_image_1... please wait. puma{admin}# |
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As admin, type the following command:
The following image uses the tftp server with the IP address of 192.50.50.201, the image name of sunfire_b10n.1.1.7, and the image at location 1.
The system returns the following output, verifying the parameters entered:
file exist! will overwrite /RFA0/BOOTIMAGE/boot_image_1 Start downloading sunfire_b10n.1.1.7... using TFTP Transferring and writing to file /RFA0/BOOTIMAGE/boot_image_1... please wait. puma{admin}# |
The following image uses the tftp server with the IP address of 192.50.50.201, the image name of sunfire_b10n.1.1.7, and the image at location diag.
The system returns the following output, verifying the parameters entered:
The boot image can be specified for the next boot and made permanent or it can be specified at boot time.
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1. As admin, configure the boot image of your choice:
In this example, the chosen image is 1.
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During boot the system prints the following message and waits for 3 seconds:
Pressing any key prompts for the image to choose for booting.
| Sun Fire B10n Content Load Balancing Blade Version 1.1 Administration Guide | 817-4326-10 |
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Copyright © 2004, Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
To Update the Flash Software