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Supermicro

1 -

Bundled BIOSs

Supermicro often bundles the firmware for the motherboard and BMC together.

Enable Remote Upgrade

Upgrading the BIOS remotely requires a license key. If your system is out of support, you can generate that getting the IMPI MAC address from the System page and using this command.

echo -n 'THEMACADDRESS' | xxd -r -p | openssl dgst -sha1 -mac HMAC -macopt hexkey:8544E3B47ECA58F9583043F8 | awk '{print $2}' | cut -c 1-24 | sed 's/..../& /g'

You can then download the BIOS from the support page, uncompress it, enter the BIOS update settings and then apply it.

(Accept the defaults)

Update the BMC/IMPI

The Baseboard Management Controller, or BMC, is a small embedded computer inside the server that allows you lights-out management. I.e. you can control the system even when its powered off. One of it’s key features is to provide the IMPI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface), a way to mange the server over the network. Its a good idea to enable it and keep it up to date.

Find the model of your server (as from the PO or BIOS screen) and search for it’s support page, for example:

Supermicro 5048R-E1CR36L

<https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/system/4U/5048/SSG-5048R-E1CR36L.cfm?

View the server’s Quick Start document to find which network socket on the server the BMC uses. Enter the BIOS (if needed) to configure the IPMI network settings and to determine what IP address (if using DHCP) is in use. It will also display this during boot. You can then access it over the network, change the password and go to maintenance.

Go to Maintenance at the top, then Firmware Update at the left. Enter Update Mode and supply the new firmware, downloadable from the server support page above.

(Leave the defaults checked)

For some/all models, the BIOS and BMC firmware are bundled together and you can skip the next step

Upgrade the SAS card

The recommended[^2] firmware (by TruNAS) is version 16.00.12.00. This is newer than the version available at Supermicro’s site.[^3].

Download the firmware package from Supermicro and the firmware binary from TrueNAS. You will need the former for the flashing utility.

Install from

You may be able to create an ISO from it and mount it virtually. See the [Virtual CD-ROM.md] notes. If it works, you can look at mapped devices with the command and change to the device

If that fails, you can extract it to a GPT FAT32 USB drive, travel to the site and insert it. Connect to the network KVM and reboot. During POST, record the SAS address by hitting Ctrl-C during it’s screen and taking a screen shot

Then you can reboot and invoke the boot menu with F11 and select built-in EUFI shell. (Enable the built in shell in BIOS Boot order if needed)

You should flash it to IT mode as you’ll not be booting from it

# Look for removable HardDisks as likely suspects
map -b
fsrB:
cd 3008*\IT\UEFI
SMC3008T.NSH

You may get stuck at the end if your netkvm keeps interrupting you before you can get the whole string in and you’ll have to look at the NSH and see what the last command is. It will be something like this:

sas3flash.efi -o -sasaddhi 50030

In that case, if your address was 50030480:1CDC4001 you can execute

sas3flash.efi -o -sasadd 500304801CDC4001

Version

TrueNAS discovered issues[^2] with the 3008 and sata drives and recommends a special firmware they have worked with Broadcom to create. I have seen those issues first hand with the firmware available from Supermicro and recommend updating to firmware 16.00.12.00 from TrueNAS

https://twitter.com/Kleissner/status/996955400787423232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E996955400787423232%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftechblog.jeppson.org%2F2018%2F12%2Fgenerate-supermicro-ipmi-license%2F

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/lsi-9300-8i-flashing.28140/

2 - IPMI

Instructions to use the java based KVM that’s part of the IPMI on older Aupermicro servers.

  • Download Firefox 52 ESR from https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/52.0esr/win32/en-US/
  • Block FireFox from updating. (HOW? - IF you don’t do this, every time you close the browser FireFox will auto update to version 60, which won’t work with Java)
  • Install Java 8 Update 431. (which version? I installed Both 32 and 64 bit just in case.)
  • Edit Java Policy ** notpade C:\Program Files\Java\jreXXX\lib\java.policy ** At the bottom, add : permission java.security.AllPermission; ** Enable Java Add On’s to always activate in firefox (In the address bar enter) about:addons On the left, “Plugins” On the right, set the two Java entries to “Always Activate”
  • Add the URL of the IPMI to the java exeptions list ** Java Control Panel –> Security Tab –> Exception Site List

3 - Virt CD

Supermicro’s IPMI will only mount NTLMv1 shares for virtual CD-ROM drives. Do that like so:

Enable NT1 protocol in your samba server

vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

[global]
  map to guest = bad user
  hosts allow = 192.168.1.
  log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
  min protocol = NT1

[srv]
  path = /srv
  read only = no
  guest ok = yes
  guest only = yes

In the Virtual Media CD-ROM add the host and path as below and hit Save before you attempt to mount.

Share Host: 192.168.1.X Path to Image: \srv\VMware-VMvisor-Installer-7.0U3c-19193900.x86_64.iso