Asset ID:	1-77-1019564.1
Update Date:	2012-09-21
Keywords:

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Solution Type  Sun Alert Sure

Solution  1019564.1 :   Installing Patches 136936-04/-05 on SPARC Enterprise T5140 and T5240 systems may lead to Regression and Booting Issues  


PreviouslyPublishedAs
241246

Bug Id
SUNBUG:6739968, SUNBUG:6739970

Product
Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 Server
Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 Server

Date of Resolved Release: 28-Aug-2008

***Checked for relevance on 21-Sep-2012***

1. Impact

Installing patches 136936-04 and 136936-05 on Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 and Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 servers delivers incorrect system firmware binaries/images.

Patch 136936-04 will cause the system to be unable to boot.

Patch 136936-05 will cause a functional regression back to unreleased firmware revision 7.1.3.c. This version of firmware introduces a Security issue as described by Bug 6710098.

Patches 136936-04 and 136936-05 have been WITHDRAWN.

2. Contributing Factors

This issue can occur on the following platforms:

SPARC Platform:

• Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140/T5240 with patch 136936-04 or 136936-05 and without patch 136936-06

Note: No other Sun systems are affected by this issue.

Note each patch 136936-04, 136936-05, and 136936-06 says that it delivers Sun System Firmware version 7.1.3.e but only 136936-06 delivers the correct "Sun_System_Firmware-7_1_3_e-SPARC_Enterprise_T514 +T5240.pkg" file.

Run the following command (what(1)) to determine which patch the file comes from:


This generates the following result for 136936-04:


This generates the following result for 136936-05:


This generates the following result for 136936-06:


3. Symptoms

After flash updating to the binary in 136936-04 and doing a "resetsc", the system will become unavailable.

The following will be seen:

sc> resetsc
Are you sure you want to reset the SC (y/n)? y
INIT: Switching to runlevel: 6
INIT: Sending processes the KILL signal
Stopping portmap daemon: portmap.
Stopping OpenBSD Secure Shell server: sshd.
Stopping Servicetags discoverer: stdiscoverer.
Stopping Servicetags listener: stlistener.
Saving the System Clock time to the Hardware Clock...
Hardware Clock updated to Wed Aug 20 03:29:53 GMT 2008.
Stopping periodic command scheduler: cron.
.
Sending all processes the TERM signal...done.
Sending all processes the KILL signal...done.
Unmounting remote and non-toplevel virtual filesystems...done.
Deactivating swap...done.
Unmounting local filesystems...umount: /store: device is busy
done.

Swapping BootFlash Hi/Low Regions
************************************************************
U-Boot 1.1.1 (Jul 29 2008 - 13:09:56)
CPU:   MPC885ZPnn at 50 MHz: 8 kB I-Cache 8 kB D-Cache FEC present
Board: SPARC885
       Watchdog enabled
I2C:   ready
DRAM:
trying 128 MBytes
trying 64 MBytes
*** failed ***
************************************************************

Once a system has reached this point, it will remain in a continuous loop. The system will not be able to determine the size of memory and so will not boot.

4. Workaround

There is no workaround for this issue.

The recovery process from having flash-updated the 136936-04 image (which results in the system being unbootable) is for an authorized service person to manually switch the "high/low" flash ROM jumper (J10501 - located on the motherboard between the SCC chip and the Riser card) and reset the system which causes the system to boot from the other half of the FLASH which should contain a recovery firmware image.

Immediately download and flash-update to the 136936-06 version of the firmware and re-boot again.  At that point, the correct firmware will be in use and no further action is required.  In particular, the J10501 jumper does not have to be switched again.

5. Resolution

This issue is addressed on the following platforms:

SPARC Platform:

• Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140/T5240 with patch 136936-06 or later
  

Modification History:
28-Aug-2008: document published
21-Sep-2012: Checked for currency/relevance, no change in content

References

SUNPATCH:13693606

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