Sun Fire[TM] V440: ALOM commands and users failing after motherboard replacement

Asset ID:	1-72-1003595.1
Update Date:	2012-07-31
Keywords:

Solution Type Problem Resolution Sure

Solution 1003595.1 : Sun Fire[TM] V440: ALOM commands and users failing after motherboard replacement

Applies to:

Sun Netra 440 Server - Version Not Applicable and later
Sun Fire V440 Server - Version Not Applicable and later
All Platforms

Symptoms

After replacing a Sun Fire[TM] V440 motherboard with part number 540-6336 behavior of the ALOM card may be erratic. There are several symptoms of this issue. The initial symptom will appear that all serial port activity is functioning extremely slow and unresponsive.

It may not be possible to login to ALOM as the password may or may not be accepted. Alternatively, it may not prompt for a user login and instead login automatically as "admin", as if on a new uninitialized system. Under this login it is not possible to run most commands (e.g console) as they advise that the admin password is not set and request the user to set it. Adding users or passwords may appear to work but will be unusable upon logout.Attempts to run common commands such as "console" or "resetsc" will prompt for the password to be set and "<command>" will be ignored because admin password is not set. The "showfru" command should be tried and if it provides a prompt back without any FRU information normally printed, then this is the final symptom to determine this issue.

Attempts to set the admin password using the "password" command fail with the following error:

"Unrecognized user error, code 254"

Also when running showsc the hardware ethernet addresses are shown as all 0:

netsc_enetaddr 00:00:00:00:00:00

sys_hostname v440-a

sys_enetaddr 00:00:00:00:00:00

Changes

Replacing a Sun Fire[TM] V440 motherboard with part number 540-6336

Cause

ALOM 1.5 or later is needed for the SC to recognize the motherboard hardware correctly.

Solution

Resolution
This issue only occurs when replacing a F540-5418 motherboard with F540-6336 and the SC is running an ALOM firmware version earlier than 1.5.
This problem occurs because the F540-6336 fru assembly (501-6910 motherboard) requires ALOM 1.5 or later for the SC to recognize the motherboard hardware correctly.

This is necessary for the SC to be able to determine the platform type and subsequently read all the I2C bus devices at the correct address, including the user/password and configuration information stored on the SCC card.

The solution is to upgrade the ALOM firmware to 1.5 or later from Solaris using the scadm command, which can be done without needing a Solaris reboot. The latest ALOM can be located from <Document 1342226.1>.

After the Software is downloaded:

1. Open a window with a tip line (or other connection) to the serial management port of the system affected console, and allow the ALOM card login screen to timeout to the system console after 60 seconds inactivity. In a 2nd telnet window to the system affected, install ALOM 1.5 as per the included README file. Use the console to monitor when the ALOM card has reset after receiving the new boot and main firmware images. NOTE the firmware updates may take up to 20 minutes each, which is much longer than normal, due to the slow operation of the serial port.
2. After the download is complete, the serial port console should start functioning again at the normal speed. Use "#." to escape back to the ALOM login screen, which should now be able to accept original user logins and run commands as normal.

If Solaris is not running, or is not accessible to a network to copy the ALOM firmware image files, or you are unable to access Solaris to use scadm for some other reason, then replace the SC card with one already flashed with ALOM 1.5 or later (F501-6346-07 or later).

Additional Information
This is documented in a footnote for the SC card in the Sun System handbook:

"Netra 440 and Sun Fire V440 Motherboard 501-6910 requires ALOM >=1.5."

https://support.oracle.com/handbook_private/Devices/Communication/COMM_ALOM.html

Internal Comments
For Internal Sun Use Only

This is also documented in Alert 1000884.1 (FCO A0245-1) for the V440/Netra440 Fatal Reset on "net0" port issue. ALOM 1.5 should be upgraded on all systems prior to carrying out the FCO replacements which are proactive for gold/platinum contract customers and fix-on-fail for everyone else.

In ~February 2005, due to the FCO, all FRU stock of motherboards will be purged and only new motherboards will be available for replacements. Therefore for any MB failure of any type, anyone with a system built prior to November 2004 that has not upgraded ALOM will run into this issue.

ALOM cards F501-6346-06 and earlier with firmware 1.4 or lower were purged from FRU stock in November 2004 and should no longer be available from RSL's, so ordering a new ALOM card for this issue should not cause the problem to continue.

v440, ALOM, scadm, password, console, serial, slow, user, login, unable, commands

Attachments

This solution has no attachment