Recently I got my hands on a piece of oldish SUN equipment (SunFire V210/V240). It was in an ok condition. Not perfect, but still usable and I will be able to fix the smaller issues.
One of the issues was the really really old OBP and ALOM installed. In this post I will show how to upgrade OBP and ALOM. The key thing to remember is to
- Read ALL the attached readmes and whats not.
- Make sure ALL dependencies are met
- Upgrade the OBP before you upgrade the ALOM
And as usual. If you break your stuff following this post, then sorry but I can and will not be held responsible for anything you do. It worked for me. If it works for you, great. If it doesn’t, then tuff luck.
With that out of the way lets get started. First we need to obtain the ALOM and OPB patch. As a private person you might have a hard time getting hold of these files without an active support contract with oracle. I know I had. Mail me if you run out of luck. You will need
- 142700-02.zip – OBP 4.30.0
- ALOM_1.6.10_fw_hw0.tar.gz – ALOM 1.6.10
Below is the raw output of the upgrade so you can see how it is done. OBP first
# wget http://someserver/142700-02.zip
# unzip 142700-02.zip
# cd 142700-02
# cp flash-update*Â /
# chmod 755 /flash-update*
# halt
**** From the OBP prompt issue
ok boot disk /flash-update-SunFire240
Firmware Release(s)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Firmware Release(s)
Currently Existing in the System     Available for Installation / Install?
———————————- ——————————————-
OBP 4.11.4 2003/07/23 08:04Â Â Â Â Â Â Â OBP 4.30.0 2010/01/06 14:48Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â YES
POST 4.30.4 2010/01/06 15:10Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â YES
Type sa if you wish to select all available firmware releases for
installation. Type h for help, quit to exit, or cont to continue: cont
The Flash programming process is about to begin.
Type h for help, q to quit, Return or Enter to continue:
Erasing the top half of the Flash PROM.
Programming OBP into the top half of the Flash PROM.
Verifying OBP in the top half of the Flash PROM.
Erasing the top half of the Flash PROM.
Programming POST into the top half of Flash PROM.
Verifying POST in the top half of the Flash PROM.
Programming was successful.
SC Alert: Host System has Reset
SC Alert: Host System has read and cleared bootmode.
Configuring system memory & CPU(s)
Probing system devices
Probing memory
NOTICE: Initializing security keystore
Probing I/O buses
Sun Fire V210, No Keyboard
Copyright 2010 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
OpenBoot 4.30.4.a, 4096 MB memory installed, Serial #57866961.
Ethernet address 0:3:ba:72:fa:d1, Host ID: 8372fad1.
NOTICE: Updating OpenBoot NVRAM diagnostic configuration variables..
diag-script =Â normal
diag-trigger =Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â error-reset power-on-reset
diag-level =Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â max
verbosity =Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â normal
service-mode? =Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â false
auto-boot-on-error? =Â Â true
error-reset-recovery =Â sync
Your OBP is now updated. Now to the ALOM. From the OS
# /usr/platform/`uname -i`/sbin/scadm version
SC Version v1.3
SC Bootmon Version:Â v1.3.0
SC Firmware Version:Â v1.3.0
# /usr/platform/`uname -i`/sbin/scadm download boot alombootfw
……………….. (100%)
Download completed successfully
Please wait for verification
…………
Complete
# sleep 60
#Â /usr/platform/`uname -i`/sbin/scadm version
SC Version v1.3
SC Bootmon Version:Â v1.6.10
SC Firmware Version:Â v1.3.0
# sleep 120
#Â /usr/platform/`uname -i`/sbin/scadm version
SC Version v1.6
SC Bootmon Version:Â v1.6.10
SC Firmware Version:Â v1.6.10
You ALOM is now updated. Nothing fancy really.
You are missing a section before the sleep 120:
# /usr/platform/`uname -i`/sbin/scadm download alommainfw
…………………………………. (6%)
…………………………………. (12%)
…………………………………. (18%)
…………………………………. (25%)
…………………………………. (31%)
…………………………………. (37%)
…………………………………. (44%)
…………………………………. (50%)
…………………………………. (56%)
…………………………………. (63%)
…………………………………. (69%)
…………………………………. (75%)
…………………………………. (81%)
…………………………………. (88%)
…………………………………. (94%)
……………………………. (100%)
Download completed successfully
Please wait for verification
……………………………………………………
Hi,
A very nice article. Im hoping you can help me to get the OBP 4.30 Sun Fire V240. Thank you. Keep up the good work.
First of all thank you for your post.
I’m trying to upgrade OBP in a SunFire V240 but I get the following message:
boot disk /flash-update-SunFire240
Rebooting with command: boot disk /flash-update-SunFire240
Boot device: /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/disk@0,0 File and args: /flash-update-SunFire240
–
Can’t open /flash-update-SunFire240
Warning: Fcode sequence resulted in a net stack depth change of 1
Evaluating:
Evaluating:
The file just loaded does not appear to be executable.
-I got the file 142700-02.zip from:
http://www.mmnt.net/db/0/0/ftp.sovintel.ru/pub/software/Solaris/patches
Any chance that the file is corrupt? Can yo send me this file via e-mail?
Actual OBP version is 4.10 (2006), so I really need to do the upgrade.
Thanks a lot and regards.
If you provide me with a place where I can dump the files then I will do that.
@Mauro Antivero: You are using Solaris 10 Upd 6 or later – look at /etc/release to determinine your release.
You have two options.
First, using the method above, at these steps:
# cp flash-update* /
# chmod 755 /flash-update*
(do not go to the #halt)
Add these two steps:
# echo flash-update*>> /boot/solaris/filelist.ramdisk
# bootadm update-archive
Now continue with the steps as described and you are good.
# halt
etc
Alternatively, much easier: In the flashprom zip file, you have a script ending with the name .sh. This is a shell script. Ensure all your applications like database are shut down. Now execute it. It will also update the flashprom, then reboot the system and you are also good.