Managing the firmware-updates repository

The firmware-updates repository contains a catalog of available updates and the update packages that can be applied to the managed devices.

About this task

The catalog contains information about firmware updates that are currently available for all devices that XClarity Administrator supports. The catalog organizes the firmware updates by device type. When you refresh the catalog, XClarity Administrator retrieves information about the latest available firmware updates from the Lenovo website (including the metadata .xml or .json and readme .txt files) and stores the information in the firmware-updates repository. The payload file (.exe) is not downloaded. For more information about refreshing the catalog, see Refreshing the product catalog.

If new firmware updates are available, you must first download the update packages before you can update that firmware on the managed devices. Refreshing the catalog does not automatically download update packages. The Product Catalog table on the Firmware Updates Repository page identifies which update packages are downloaded and which are available for download.

You can download firmware updates in a few different ways:

• Firmware-update repository packs. Repository packs contains the latest available firmware updates for all supported devices and a refreshed default firmware-compliance policy. These repository packs are imported and then applied from the Update Management Server page.

• UpdateXpress System Packs (UXSPs). UXSPs contains the latest available firmware and device driver updates, organized by operating system. When you download UXSPs from the Firmware Updates: Repository page, only firmware updates are downloaded and stored in the repository. Device driver updates are excluded.

  Note

  For servers with XCC2, these packs are referred to as firmware bundles.

• Individual firmware updates. You can download individual firmware-update packages, at one time, based on the version that is listed in the catalog.

XClarity Administrator must be connected to the Internet to refresh the catalog and download firmware updates. If it is not connected to the Internet, you can manually download the files to a workstation that has network access to the XClarity Administrator host using a web browser and then import the files into the firmware-updates repository.

Note

For certain ThinkSystem DM storage devices, when you download firmware updates, the Written Offer PDF file for the ONTAP operating system is also downloaded. You can optionally select the ONTAP Written Offer PDF (if applicable) when you manually import firmware updates for these devices as well. To view the file in the web interface, click the icon in the Release Notes column to display the Release Notes dialog, and then click the ONTAP Written Offer tab.

Attention

• Only import these required files. Do not import other files that might be found on the firmware download websites.
• If you do not include the metadata (.xml or .json) file in the update package, the update is not imported.
• If you do not include all required files that are associated with the update, the repository shows that the update is not downloaded, which means that it is partially imported. You can then import the missing files by selecting and importing them.
• The core firmware updates (such as management controller, UEFI, and pDSA) are operating-system independent. Firmware-update packages for the RHEL 6 or SLES 11 operating systems are used to update compute nodes and rack servers.

After the firmware-updates are downloaded in the repository, information is provided about each update, including the release date, size, policy usage, and severity.

Policy usage indicates whether the package is used in one or more policies other than the default Latest-firmware-in-repository policy. You cannot delete an update package that is in-use.

Severity indicates the impact and the need to apply the update to help you to assess how your environment might be affected.

• Initial Release. This is the first release of the firmware.

• Critical. The firmware release contains urgent fixes for data corruption, security, or stability issue.

• Suggested. The firmware release contains significant fixes for problems that you are likely to encounter.

• Non-Critical. The firmware release contains minor fixes, performance enhancements, and textual changes.

Note

• The severity is relative to the previously released version of the update. For example, if the installed firmware is v1.01, and update v1.02 is Critical and update v1.03 is Recommended, this means that the update from 1.02 to 1.03 is recommended, but the update from v1.01 to v1.03 is critical because it is cumulative (v1.03 includes v1.02 critical issues).

• Special cases might arise where an update is only critical or recommended for a specific machine type or operating system. Refer to the Release Notes for additional information.

Procedure

To view firmware updates that are available in the product catalog, complete the following steps.

1. From the XClarity Administrator menu bar, click Provisioning > Repository. The Firmware Updates Repository page is displayed with a list of available firmware-update packages, organized by device type.
2. Click the Individual Updates tab to view information about available firmware update packages, or click the UpdateXpress System Packs (UXSPs) tab to view information about available UXSPs
3. Expand a device and device components to list the update packages and firmware updates for that device.

   You can sort the table columns and click the Expand all icon () and Collapse all icon () to make it easier to find specific firmware updates. In addition, you can filter the list of displayed devices and firmware updates by selecting an option in the Show menu to list only firmware updates of a specific age, firmware updates for all server types or only managed-server types or by entering text in the Filter field. Note that if you search for specific devices, only the devices are listed; firmware updates are not listed under the device name.

   Note

   For servers, specific update packages are available based on the type of server. For example, if you expand a server, such as the Flex System x240 Compute Node, update packages that are available specifically for that compute node are displayed.