Power6 Mid-Range Firmware Fix History - Release levels EM3xx

01/20/17

• A problem was fixed for a Live Partition Mobility migration that resulted in the source managed system going to the management console Incomplete state after the migration to the target system was completed.  This problem is very rare and has only been detected once.. The problem trigger is that the source partition does not halt execution after the migration to the target system.   The management console went to the Incomplete state for the source managed system when it failed to delete the source partition because the partition would not stop running.  When this problem occurred, the customer network was running very slowly and this may have contributed to the failure.  The recovery action is to re-IPL the source system but that will need to be done without the assistance of the management console.  For each partition that has a OS running on the source system, shut down each partition from the OS.  Then from the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI),  power off the managed system.  Alternatively, the system power button may also be used to do the power off.  If the management console Incomplete state persists after the power off, the managed system should be rebuilt from the management console.  For more information on management console recovery steps, refer to this IBM Knowledge Center link: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/POWER7/p7eav/aremanagedsystemstate_incomplete.htm
• A rare problem was fixed for a system hang that can occur when dynamically moving "uncapped" partitions to a different shared processor pool.  To prevent a system hang, the "uncapped" partitions should be changed to "capped" before doing the move.
  
• A problem was fixed for Live Partition Mobility (LPM) migrations from FW860.10 or FW860.11 to older levels of firmware. Subsequent DLPAR of Virtual Adapters will fail with HMC error message HSCL294C, which contains text similar to the following:  "0931-007 You have specified an invalid drc_name." This issue affects partitions installed with AIX 7.2 TL 1 and later. Not affected by this issue are partitions installed with VIOS, IBM i, or earlier levels of AIX.

• On systems with IBM i partitions, a problem was fixed for frequent logging of Informational errors of B7005120 for the HMC closed pipe condition for messages sent to IBM i partitions..  The HMC closed pipe to the hypervisor does not represent an error but is a normal operating state that does not need concern or service.  Therefore, the informational logging of the HMC closed pipe condition has been removed.  Without the fix, IBM support and the customer should ignore the B7005120 informational error logs.

06/23/16

• A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL for a possible service processor reset on a null pointer de-reference during RSA PPS signature verification. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2015-3194.
  

• On systems with dedicated processor partitions,  a problem was fixed for the dedicated processor partition becoming intermittently unresponsive.  The problem can be circumvented by changing the partition to use shared processors.  This is a follow-on to the fix provided in 350.G0 for a different issue for delays in dedicated processor partitions that were caused by low I/O utilization.

02/05/16

• A problem was fixed for some service processor error logs not getting reported to the OS partitions as needed.  The service processor was not checking for a successful completion code on the error log message send, so it was not doing retries of the send to the OS when that was needed to ensure that the OS received the message.
• For systems with an invalid P-side or T-side in the firmware, a problem was fixed in the partition firmware Real-Time Abstraction System (RTAS) so that system Vital Product Data (VPD) is returned at least from the valid side instead of returning no VPD data.   This allows AIX host commands such as lsmcode, lsvpd, and lsattr that rely on the VPD data to work to some extent even if there is one bad code side.  Without the fix,  all the VPD data is blocked from the OS until the invalid code side is recovered by either rejecting the firmware update or attempting to update the system firmware again.
• A security problem was fixed for an OpenSSL specially crafted X.509 certificate that could cause the service processor to reset in a denial-of-service (DOS) attack.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2015-1789.
• A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL where a remote attacker could cause an infinite loop on the service processor using malformed Elliptic Curve parameters during the SSL authentication.  This would cause the service processor performance problems and also prevent new management console connections from being made.  To recover from this attack, a reset or power cycle of the service processor is needed after scheduling and completing a normal shutdown of running partitions..  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2015-1788.
• A security problem was fixed in the lighttpd server on the service processor OpenSSL where a remote attacker, while attempting authentication, could insert strings into the lighttpd server log file.  Under normal operations on the service processor, this does not impact anything because the log is disabled by default.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2015-3200.
• A problem was fixed for a Network boot/install failure using bootp in a network with switches using the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP).  A Network boot/install using lpar_netboot on the management console was enhanced to allow the number of retries to be increased.  If the user is not using lpar_netboot, the number of bootp retries can be increased using the SMS menus.  If the SMS menus are not an option, the STP in the switch can be set up to allow packets to pass through while the switch is learning the network configuration.
  

• For non-HMC managed systems in Manufacturing Default Configuration (MDC) mode with a single host partition, a problem was fixed for missing dumps of type SYSDUMP. FSPDUMP. LOGDUMP, and RSCDUMP that were not off-loaded to the host OS.  This is an infrequent error caused by a timing error that causes the dump notification signal to the host OS to be lost.  The missing/pending dumps can be retrieved by rebooting the host OS partition.  The rebooted host OS will receive new notifications of the dumps that have to be off-loaded.
• On PowerVM systems with dedicated processor partitions with low I/O utilization, the dedicated processor partition may become intermittently unresponsive. The problem can be circumvented by changing the partition to use shared processors.

05/14/15

• A problem was fixed with the fspremote service tool to make it support TLSv1.2 connections to the service processor to be compatible with systems that had been fixed for the OpenSSL Padding Oracle On Dowgraded Legacy Encryption (POODLE) vulnerabilities.  After the POODLE fix is installed,  by default the system only allows secured connections from clients using the TLSv1.2 protocol.
• A problem was fixed for a partition deletion error on the management console with error code 0x4000E002 and message "...insufficient memory for PHYP".  The partition delete operation has been adjusted to accommodate the temporary increase in memory usage caused by memory fragmentation, allowing the delete operation to be successful.
• A problem was fixed for I/O adapters so that BA400002 errors were changed to informational for memory boundary adjustments made to the size of DMA map-in requests.  These DMA size adjustments were marked as UE previously for a condition that is normal.
• A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL where the service processor would, under certain conditions, accept Diffie-Hellman client certificates without the use of a private key, allowing a user to falsely authenticate.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2015-0205.
• A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL to prevent a denial of service when handling certain Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) messages.  A specially crafted DTLS message could exhaust all available memory and cause the service processor to reset.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2015-0206.
• A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL to prevent a denial of service when handling certain Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) messages.  A specially crafted DTLS message could do an null pointer de-reference and cause the service processor to reset.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2014-3571.
• A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL to fix multiple flaws in the parsing of X.509 certificates.  These flaws could be used to modify an X.509 certificate to produce a certificate with a different fingerprint without invalidating its signature, and possibly bypass fingerprint-based blacklisting.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2014-8275.
• A security vulnerability, commonly referred to as GHOST, was fixed in the service processor glibc functions getbyhostname() and getbyhostname2() that allowed remote users of the functions to cause a buffer overflow and execute arbitrary code with the permissions of the server application.  There is no way to exploit this vulnerability on the service processor but it has been fixed to remove the vulnerability from the firmware.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2015-0235.
• A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL where a remote attacker could crash the service processor with malformed Elliptic Curve private keys.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2015-0209.
• A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL where a remote attacker could crash the service processor with a specially crafted X.509 certificate that causes an invalid pointer, out-of-bounds write, or a null pointer de-reference.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue numbers are CVE-2015-0286,  CVE-2015-0287, and CVE-2015-0288.
  

• On a system with redundant service processors, a problem was fixed for an operations panel core dump with SRC B181A0FA during an administrative failover (AFO) of the service processor.
• On a system with redundant service processors, a problem was fixed for bad pointer reference in the mailbox function during data synchronization between the two service processors.  The de-reference of the bad pointer caused a core dump, reset/reload, and fail-over to the backup service processor.
• On systems that have Active Memory Sharing (AMS) partitions, a problem was fixed for Dynamic Logical Partitioning (DLPAR) for a memory remove that leaves a logical memory block (LMB) in an unusable state until partition reboot.
• On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer installed, a problem was fixed for a hypervisor hang at progress code C7004091 during the IPL or hangs during serviceability tasks to the I/O drawer.
• On systems with partitions using shared processors, a problem was fixed that could result in latency or timeout issues with I/O devices.
• A problem was fixed that could result in unpredictable behavior if a memory UE is encountered while relocating the contents of a logical memory block during one of these operations:
  - Using concurrent maintenance to perform a hot repair of a node.
  - Reducing the size of an Active Memory Sharing (AMS) pool.
• A problem was fixed for systems in networks using the Juniper 1GBe and 10GBe switches (F/Cs #1108, #1145, and #1151) to prevent network ping errors and boot from network (bootp) failures.  The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) table information on the Juniper aggregated switches is not being shared between the switches and that causes problems for address resolution in certain network configurations.  Therefore, the CEC network stack code has been enhanced to add three gratuitous ARPs (ARP replies sent without a request received) before each ping and bootp request to ensure that all the network switches have the latest network information for the system.
• On systems in IPv6 networks, a  problem was fixed for a network boot/install failing with SRC B2004158 and IP address resolution failing using neighbor solicitation to the partition firmware client.
• For systems with a IBM i load source disk attached to an Emulex-based fibre channel adapter such as F/C #5735, a problem was fixed that caused an IBM i load source boot to fail with SRC B2006110 logged and a message to the boot console of  "SPLIT-MEM Out of Room".  This problem occurred for load source disks that needed extra disk scans to be found, such as those attached to a port other than the first port of a fibre channel adapter (first port requires fewest disk scans).
  

• A problem was fixed for concurrent maintenance operations to limit hardware retries on failed hardware so that it can be concurrently repaired.
• A problem was fixed for a power off failure of an expansion drawer (F/C 5802 or F/C 5877) during a concurrent repair.  The power off commands to the drawer are now tried again using the System Power Control Network (SPCN) serial connection to the drawer to allow the repair to continue.
• A problem was fixed for concurrent maintenance to prevent a hardware unavailable failure when doing consecutive concurrent remove and add operations to an I/O Hub adapter for a drawer.
  

01/08/15

• A security problem was fixed in the OpenSSL (Secure Socket Layer) protocol that allowed a man-in -the middle attacker, via a specially crafted fragmented handshake packet, to force a TLS/SSL server to use TLS 1.0, even if both the client and server supported newer protocol versions. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number for this problem is CVE-2014-3511.
• A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL for formatting fields of security certificates without null-terminating the output strings.  This could be used to disclose portions of the program memory on the service processor.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number for this problem is CVE-2014-3508.
• Multiple security problems were fixed in the way that OpenSSL handled Datagram Transport Layer Security (DLTS) packets.  A specially crafted DTLS handshake packet could cause the service processor to reset.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue numbers for these problems are CVE-2014-3505, CVE-2014-3506 and CVE-2014-3507.
• A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL to prevent a denial of service when handling certain Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) ServerHello requests.  A specially crafted DTLS handshake packet with an included Supported EC Point Format extension could cause the service processor to reset.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number for this problem is CVE-2014-3509.
• A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL to prevent a denial of service by using an exploit of a null pointer de-reference during anonymous Diffie Hellman (DH) key exchange.  A specially crafted handshake packet could cause the service processor to reset.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number for this problem is CVE-2014-3510.
• A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL for memory leaks that allowed remote attackers to cause a denial of service (out of memory on the service processor). The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue numbers are CVE-2014-3513 and CVE-2014-3567.
• A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL for padding-oracle attacks known as Padding Oracle On Dowgraded Legacy Encryption (POODLE).  This attack allows a man-in-the-middle attacker to obtain a plain text version of the encrypted session data. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2014-3566.  The service processor POODLE fix is based on a selective disablement of SSLv3 using the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI) "System Configuration/Security Configuration" menu options.  The Security Configuration options of "Disabled", "Default", and "Enabled" for SSLv3 determines the level of protection from POODLE.  The management console also requires a POODLE fix for APAR MB03867(FIX FOR CVE-2014-3566 FOR HMC V7 R7.7.0 SP4 with PTF MH01482) to eliminate all vulnerability to POODLE and allow use of option 1 "Disabled" as shown below:
  -1) Disabled:  This highest level of security protection does not allow service processor clients to connect using SSLv3, thereby eliminating any possibility of a POODLE attack.  All clients must be capable of using TLS to make the secured connections to the service processor to use this option.  This requires the management console be at a minimum level of HMC V7 R7.7.0 SP4 with POODLE PTF MH01482.
  -2) Default:  This medium level of security protection disables SSLv3 for the web browser sessions to ASMI and for the CIM clients and assures them of POODLE-free connections.  But the legacy management consoles are allowed to use SSLv3 to connect to the service processor.  This is intended to allow non-POODLE compliant HMC levels to be able to connect to the CEC servers until they can be planned and upgraded to the POODLE compliant HMC levels.  Running a non-POODLE compliant HMC to a service processor in  "Default" mode will prevent the ASMI-proxy sessions from the HMC from connecting as these proxy sessions require SSLv3 support in ASMI.
  -3) Enabled:  This basic level of security protection enables SSLv3 for all service processor client connection.  It relies on all clients being at POODLE fix compliant levels to provide full POODLE protection using the TLS Fallback Signaling Cipher Suite Value (TLS_FALLBACK_SCSV) to prevent fallback to vulnerable SSLv3 connections.  This option is intended for customer sites on protected internal networks that have a large investment in legacy hardware that need SSLv3 to make browser and HMC connection to the service processor.  The level of POODLE protection actually achieved in "Enabled" mode is determined by the percentage of clients that are at the POODLE fix compliant levels.

06/25/14

• Support was dropped for Secured Socket Layer (SSL) Version 2 and SSL weak and medium cipher suites in the service processor web server (Ligthttpd).  Unsupported web browser connections to the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI) secured port 443 (using https://) will now be rejected if those browsers do not support SSL version 3.  Supported web browsers for Power6 ASMI are Netscape (version 9.0.0.4), Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 7.0), Mozilla Firefox (version 2.0.0.11), and Opera (version 9.24).
  

• HIPER/Pervasive:  A  security problem was fixed in the OpenSSL Montgomery ladder implementation for the ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) to protect sensitive information from being obtained with a flush and reload cache side-channel attack to recover ECDSA nonces from the service processor.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2014-0076.  The stolen ECDSA nonces could be used to decrypt the SSL sessions and compromise the Hardware Management Console (HMC) access password to the service processor.  Therefore, the HMC access password for the CEC should be changed after applying this fix.
• HIPER/Pervasive:  A  security problem was fixed in the OpenSSL Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) to not allow Heartbeat Extension packets to trigger a buffer over-read to steal private keys for the encrypted sessions on the service processor.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2014-0160 and it is also known as the heartbleed vulnerability.  The stolen private keys could be used to decrypt the SSL sessions and and compromise the Hardware Management Console (HMC) access password to the service processor.  Therefore, the HMC access password for the CEC should be changed after applying this fix.
• HIPER/Pervasive:  A security problem was fixed in the OpenSSL (Secure Socket Layer) protocol that allowed clients and servers, via a specially crafted handshake packet, to use weak keying material for communication.  A man-in-the-middle attacker could use this flaw to decrypt and modify traffic between the management console and the service processor.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number for this problem is CVE-2014-0224.
• HIPER/Pervasive:  A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL for a buffer overflow in the Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) when handling invalid DTLS packet fragments.  This could be used to execute arbitrary code on the service processor.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number for this problem is CVE-2014-0195.
• HIPER/Pervasive:  Multiple security problems were fixed in the way that OpenSSL handled read and write buffers when the SSL_MODE_RELEASE_BUFFERS mode was enabled to prevent denial of service.  These could cause the service processor to reset or unexpectedly drop connections to the management console when processing certain SSL commands.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue numbers for these problems are CVE-2010-5298 and CVE-2014-0198.
• HIPER/Pervasive:  A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL to prevent a denial of service when handling certain Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) ServerHello requests. A specially crafted DTLS handshake packet could cause the service processor to reset.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number for this problem is CVE-2014-0221.
• HIPER/Pervasive:  A security problem was fixed in OpenSSL to prevent a denial of service by using an exploit of a null pointer de-reference during anonymous Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman (ECDH) key exchange.  A specially crafted handshake packet could cause the service processor to reset.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number for this problem is CVE-2014-3470.
  
•  A problem was fixed that caused the system information LED to be lit without a corresponding SRC and error log for the event.  This problem typically occurs when an operating system on a partition terminates abnormally.
• A security problem was fixed in the service processor Lighttpd web server that allowed denial of service vulnerabilities for the Advanced System Manager Interface (ASMI).  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue numbers for this problem are CVE-2011-4362 and CVE-2012-5533.
• A problem was fixed on the service processor where the Small-Footprint CIM Broker Daemon (SFCBD) process was accessing a null pointer and failing with a core dump, triggering a FSP dump to collect the core.
• A problem was fixed that caused a security scan of the Advanced System Manager Interface (ASMI) to fail.  The Lighttpd web server configuration cipher list was updated to improve the security.
• A security problem in the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol on the service processor was fixed to prevent a man-in-the-middle attack.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2011-3389.
• A  security problem was fixed for the Lighttpd web server that allowed arbitrary SQL commands to be run on the service processor of the CEC.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2014-2323.
• A security problem was fixed for the Lighttpd web server where improperly-structured URLs could be used to view arbitrary files on the service processor of the CEC.  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue number is CVE-2014-2324..
  
• A problem was fixed that caused a "code accept" during a concurrent firmware installation from the HMC to fail with SRC E302F85C.
• A  security problem was fixed in the service processor TCP/IP stack to discard illegal TCP/IP packets that have the SYN and FIN flags set at the same time.  An explicit packet discard was needed to prevent further processing of the packet that could result in an bypass of the iptables firewall rules.
  

• On systems using dynamic Distributed Host Control Protocol (DHCP) IP addresses, a problem was fixed that caused communication hangs when DHCP client processes were unable to renew their IP addresses.  The iptable rules needed to be updated to open DHCP ports 67 and 68 to prevent the DHCP network traffic from being filtered by the service processor.
• On a system with partitions with redundant Virtual Asynchronous Services Interface (VASI) streams, a problem was fixed that caused the system to terminate with SRC B170E540.  The affected partitions include Active Memory Sharing (AMS), encapsulated state partitions, and hibernation-capable partitions.  The problem is triggered when the management console attempts to change the active VASI stream in a redundant configuration.  This may occur due to a stream reconfiguration caused by Live Partition Mobility (LPM); reconfiguring from a redundant Paging Service Partition (PSP) to a single-PSP configuration; or conversion of a partition from AMS to dedicated memory.
• On systems involved in a series of consecutive Live Partition Mobility (LPM) operations, a memory leak problem was fixed in the run time abstraction service (RTAS) that caused a partition run time AIX crash with SRC 0c20.  Other possible symptoms include error logs with SRC BA330002 (RTAS memory allocation failure).
•  On a system with a disk device with multiple boot partitions, a problem was fixed that caused System Management Services (SMS) to list only one boot partition.  Even though only one boot partition was listed in SMS, the AIX bootlist command could still be used to boot from any boot partition.
• For a partition with a 256MB Real Memory Offset (RMO) region size that has been migrated from a Power8 system to  Power7 or Power6 using Live Partition Mobility, a problem was fixed that caused a failure on the next boot of the partition with a BA210000 log with a CA000091 checkpoint just prior to the BA210000.  The fix dynamically adjusts the memory footprint of the partition to fit on the earlier Power systems.
• On systems with a redundant service processor, a problem was fixed that caused a SRC B150D15E to be erroneously logged after a failover to the sibling service processor.
  
• On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer installed, a problem was fixed that where an Offline Converter Assembly (OCA) fault would appear to persist after an OCA micro-reset or OCA replacement.  The fault bit reported to the OS may not be cleared, indicating a fault still exists in the I/O drawer after it has been repaired.

07/25/13

• A problem was fixed that caused the managed system to go to the incomplete state on the management console after a partition was deleted.
• A problem was fixed that caused an error log generated by the partition firmware to show conflicting firmware levels.  This problem occurs after a firmware update or a logical partition migration (LPM) operation on the system.
• The firmware was enhanced to display on the management console the correct number of concurrent live partition mobility (LPM) operations that is supported.
• A problem was fixed that caused the state of the Host Ethernet Adapter (HEA) port of be reported as down when the physical port is actually up.
• A problem was fixed that caused the partition target of a logical partition migration (LPM) to have its UTC time shifted forward from the actual time on the source partition.
• A problem was fixed that that caused a HMC code update failure for the FSP on the accept operation with SRC B1811402 or FSP is unable to boot on the updated side.
  

• On systems with I/O towers attached, a problem was fixed that caused multiple service processor reset/reloads if the tower was continuously sending invalid System Power Control Network (SPCN) status data.
  
• On a partition with a large number of potentially bootable devices, a problem was fixed that caused the partition to fail to boot with a default catch, and SRC BA210000 may also be logged.
• On systems running AIX or Linux, a problem was fixed that caused the operating system to halt when an InfiniBand Host Channel Adapter (HCA) adapter fails or malfunctions.
• On systems running Active Memory Sharing (AMS) partitions, a timing problem was fixed that may occur if the system is undergoing AMS pool size changes.
• On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer installed, the firmware was enhanced to guarantee that an SRC will be generated when there is a power supply voltage fault.  If no SRC is generated, a loss of power redundancy may not be detected, which can lead to a drawer crash if the other power supply goes down.  This also fixes a problem that causes an  8 GB Fiber channel adapter in the drawer to log errors if the 12V level fails in the drawer.
• On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer installed, a problem was fixed that caused the hardware topology on the management console for the managed system to show "null" instead of "operational" for the affected I/O drawers.
• A problem was fixed that caused a migrated partition to reboot during transfer to a VIOS 2.2.2.0, and later, target system. A manual reboot would be required if transferred to a target system running an earlier VIOS release. Migration recovery may also be necessary.
  

• On systems running multiple IBM i partitions that are configured to communicate with each other via virtual Opticonnect, concurrent hot add/repair maintenance operations may time-out.  When this problem occurs, a platform reboot may be required to recover.

01/09/13

• A problem was fixed that caused the hypervisor to be left in an inconsistent state after a partition create operation failed.
• A problem was fixed that caused the hypervisor to become unresponsive and the managed system to go the incomplete state on the management console.
• A problem was fixed that caused the service processor to fail to boot after a concurrent firmware update; this causes a system crash.
  

• A problem was fixed that prevented the HMC command "lshwres" from showing any I/O adapters if any adapter name contained the ampersand character in the VPD.
• The Power Hypervisor was enhanced to insure better synchronization of vSCSI and NPIV I/O interrupts to partitions.
• On systems running AIX or Linux, a problem was fixed that caused a partition to fail to boot with SRC CA260203.  This problem also can cause concurrent firmware updates to fail.
  

• A problem was fixed that caused the Hypervisor to become unresponsive during a concurrent maintenance operation.

07/27/12

• Support for live partition mobility between systems running Ex350 system firmware, and 8246-L2S systems.
  

• The firmware was enhanced to improve the isolation of the failing component when SRC 110016x1 (VRM failure) is logged.

• On systems booting from an NPIV (N-port ID virtualization) device, a problem was fixed that caused the boot to intermittently terminate with the message "PReP-BOOT: unable to load full PReP image.".  This problem occurs more frequently on the IBM V7000 Storage System running the SAN Volume Controller (SVC), but not on every boot.
• On systems on which Internet Explorer (IE) is used to access the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI) on the Hardware Management Console (HMC), a problem was fixed that caused IE to hang for about 10 minutes after saving changes to network parameters on the ASMI.
• On systems running the AIX operating system, a problem was fixed that caused the hypervisor to crash with SRC B7000103, after an HEA (Host Ethernet Adapter) error was logged, when there is a lot of AIX activity on the HEAs.

05/02/12

• The firmware was enhanced to log SRCs BA180030 and BA180031 as informational instead of predictive.
• The firmware was enhanced to increase the threshold of soft NVRAM errors on the service processor to 32 before SRC B15xF109 is logged.  (Replacement of the service processor is recommended if more than one B15xF109 is logged per week.)

• The firmware resolves undetected N-mode stability problems and improves error reporting on the feature code (F/C) 5802 and 5877 I/O drawer power subsystem.
  
• HIPER/Pervasive: On systems with PCI adapters in a feature code (F/C) F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer assigned to a Virtual I/O Server (VIOS), and on systems with the I/O adapters in a CEC drawer assigned to a VIOS, a problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRC B700F103.
• A problem was fixed that caused the hypervisor to hang during a concurrent operation on a F/C 5802, 5803, 5873 or 5877 I/O drawer.  Recovering from the hypervisor hang required a platform reboot.
  
• On system performing Live Partition Mobility (LPM), a problem was fixed that caused a partition to crash if the following sequence of operations is performed:
  
  1.  The partition is configured with, and is using, more than 1 dedicated processor.
  2.  The partition is migrated using LPM from a POWER6 to a POWER7 platform.
  3.  At any time following the migration from POWER6 to POWER7, one or more of the dedicated processors is removed from the partition using a Dynamic Logical Partitioning (DLPAR) operation.
  
   Once these 3 steps operations have been done, a partition crash is likely if either:
    - The partition is subsequently migrated to any other platform (POWER6 or POWER7) using LPM,  or
    - The partition is resumed from hibernation.
  
  
• A problem was fixed that caused the output of the AIX command "uname -m" to be incorrect on the POWER7 system after a successful Live Partition Migration (LPM) operation from a POWER6 to a POWER7 system.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the operating system from being notified that a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer had recovered from an input power fault (SRC 10001512 or 10001522).
• The firmware was enhanced to improve soft error recovery and error reporting on feature code (F/C) 5802 and 5877 I/O drawers.
• A problem was fixed that caused booting from a virtual fibre channel tape device to fail with SRC B2008105.
  

• A problem was fixed that caused the hypervisor's memory usage to grow during a concurrent maintenance node evacuation operation.  When this problem occurred, the amount of reserved memory (the memory the hypervisor is using) increases, and the amount of available memory decreases, as viewed on the Hardware Management Console (HMC) or System Director Management Console (SDMC).

10/27/11

• A problem was fixed that caused the system to terminate when rebooting after the power was removed, then reapplied.
• A problem was fixed that caused the message "IPL: 500 - Internal Server Error" to be displayed when the Hardware Management Console option was selected (which is under the System Information option) on the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI).
• On systems running more than 100 logical partitions, a problem was fixed that caused a concurrent firmware installation to fail.
  
• A problem was fixed that caused a system's partition dates to revert back to 1969 after the service processor or its battery was replaced.  This occurred regardless of whether or not the service processor's time-of-day (TOD) clock was correctly set during the service action. 
  
• A problem was fixed that caused a partition migration operation to abort when the partition has more than 4096 virtual slots.
• A problem was fixed that caused the message "500 - Internal Server Error." to be displayed when a setting was changed on the Advanced System Management Interface's (ASMI's) power on/off menu, when the change was attempted when the system was powering down.
• A problem was fixed that caused booting or installing a partition or system from a USB device to fail with error code BA210012.  This usually occurs when an operating system (OS) other than the OS that is already on the partition or system is being booted or installed.
• On the System Management Services (SMS) remote IPL (RIPL) menus, a problem was fixed that caused the SMS menu to continue to show that an Ethernet device is configured for iSCSI, even though the user has changed it to BOOTP.
• A problem was fixed that caused a firmware installation from the HMC with the "do not auto accept" option selected to fail.
  

• On systems running IBM i partitions, a problem was fixed that caused changing the processor weight on an IBM i partition to 255 to have no effect.
• On system using the utility capacity on demand (COD) feature, a problem was fixed that prevented the hypervisor from correctly crediting the time used when the sequence number of the activation code reached certain values.
• HIPER / Non-Pervasive:  On systems running Active Memory Sharing (AMS) with a feature code (F/C) 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer attached, a problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRC B170E540 after a warm boot or platform dump IPL.
  
• On systems with an iSCSI network, a problem was fixed that caused the system to hang when booting from an iSCSI device in the system management services (SMS) menus.
• On systems with an iSCSI network, when booting a logical partition using that iSCSI network, a problem was fixed that caused the iSCSI gateway parameter displayed on the screen to be incorrect.  It did not impact iSCSI boot functionality.
• On systems using fibre channel adapters, the firmware was enhanced by the addition of a new option in the system management services (SMS) Mutliboot menu that facilitates zoning of physical and virtual fibre channel adapters.
• On systems with external I/O drawers, the firmware was enhanced such that SRCs 10001B02 and 1000911C place a call home.
• On systems with external InfiniBand or PCI-E drawers or towers, a problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRC B7000103 if the I/O hub adapter crashed at the same time an external drawer or tower was being initialized.

• On partitions running Red Hat Linux 6.1, a problem was fixed that caused a node evacuation operation to fail.
• HIPER / Non-Pervasive: On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer attached, a problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRC B170E540 after a warm boot or platform dump IPL.
• A problem was fixed that caused the host Ethernet adapters (HEA) to be in a non-functional state after a hot node add.

07/07/11

• A problem was fixed that caused some of the extended error log data to be parsed incorrectly.  This problem only occurs on systems with a large number of deconfigured components.

• HIPER:  On systems running VIOS, a problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRC B700F103.
• On systems running shared processor partitions, a problem was fixed that caused a partition to hang until powered off and back on.

06/06/11

New Features and Functions

• Support for the attachment of a System Director Management Console (SDMC).

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• PARTITION-DEFERRED:  A problem was fixed that prevented virtual LANs (VLANs) in a VIOS with partition ID of 1 from being displayed as bootable devices in the system management services (SMS) menus.
• A problem was fixed that prevented a hardware management console (HMC) from being permanently disconnected using the Advanced System Management Services (ASMI) menus.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the timed-power-on command from turning the system back on if the service processor's clock was adjusted to an earlier time.  Adjustment of the service processor's clock could have been done through the operating system or the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI).  This problem could occur during the fall when clocks are set back when daylight saving time ends, for example.
• A problem was fixed that caused certain service processor error log entries with a severity of "predictive", and a failing subsystem of "service processor firmware", to be erroneously converted to "informational".
• A problem was fixed that caused the HMC2 port on the advanced system management interface (ASMI) to erroneously default to static IP addressing instead of dynamic.
• A problem was fixed that caused a firmware installation to fail with SRC B181EF7C.
• A problem was fixed that prevented processor resources from being moved to another partition by a DLPAR (dynamic LPAR) operation.
• A problem was fixed that prevented partitions from booting.
• The firmware was enhanced to list the attached devices when viewing the adapter information for a partition profile on the HMC GUI.
  
• A problem was fixed that could cause the target partition to crash after a successful P6 to P7 partition migration.  Possible AIX error log entries include:  label: DSI_PROC, resource:  SYSVMM, with description: "DATA STORAGE INTERRUPT, PROCESSOR".  Other partition-related crash descriptors may also be logged.
• A problem was fixed that could cause AIX error log entries following a successful partition migration.  Possible AIX error log entries include: label: RTAS_ERROR, resource: sysplanar0, with description: "INTERNAL ERROR CODE".  Other errors may also be logged..
• A problem was fixed that caused a partition to crash with SRC BA330002 after several concurrent installations of system firmware, or partition migrations, without a reboot.
• A problem was fixed that caused multiple DR_DMA_MIGRATE_FAIL entries in the AIX error log.
• A problem was fixed that caused the installation of some versions of Linux to fail.
• A problem was fixed that caused a partition migration or partition hibernation operation to hang with the partition left in the "suspending" state.
• The firmware was enhanced to log SRC B1768B76 as informational instead of unrecoverable.
• A problem was fixed that caused the platform to become unresponsive; this was indicated by an incomplete state on the HMC.  When this problem occurred, the partitions on the managed system became unresponsive.
• A problem was fixed that caused the managed system to go to the incomplete state on the HMC.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the battery on the secondary service processor from being called out when it needed to be replaced.
  

System firmware changes that affect certain systems

• On systems running Advanced Memory Sharing (AMS), a problem was fixed that caused an AMS partition to crash with SRC B700F103.  This problem may occur when reducing the size of the AMS pool (or doing a hot node repair on a model MMB or MHB) at the same time as dynamically creating an AMS partition, or changing an AMS partition's maximum memory.
  
• On systems using logical host Ethernet adapter (LHEA) ports, a problem was fixed that caused the activation of a partition that is using an LHEA logical port (LPORT) to hang at C2008104, and the HMC to show an Incomplete status for the system.
• On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O expansion drawer, a problem was fixed that caused SRC 10003144 or 10003154 to be erroneously
  logged when a repair was done on the I/O drawer.
• On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O expansion drawer, a problem was fixed that caused the lamp test on the HMC to turn off all of the LEDs when the test was complete instead of returning them to their original states.
• On stand-alone systems running AIX or Linux, and on systems managed by IVM (Integrated Virtualization Manager), a problem was fixed that prevented platform dumps from being off-loaded, or resulted in corrupted or incomplete platform dumps. 
  
• On systems using capacity on demand (CoD), a problem was fixed that caused multiple informational B7005300 SRCs to be logged, which caused the error log to wrap, and predictive and unrecoverable SRC data to be lost.
• On systems running IBM i partitions, IBM i network installation capability was not reported correctly to the HMC after installation of the firmware service pack that enabled this function without rebooting the managed system.
• On systems running IBM i partitions, a problem was fixed that caused a RAID array of SCSI disks to be exposed if an MES upgrade was done, or a system plan was created.
• On systems and partitions running IBM i, a problem was fixed that caused the operating system to use excessive processor cycles.
  
• On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer attached, a problem was fixed that caused a power on unit operation from the HMC to time out, and informational SRC 10009107 to be logged, if the following conditions were met:
          - The SPCN firmware update policy in the ASMI was set to "Expanded", instead of "Enabled" (the default and recommended setting).
          -  An SPCN firmware update of the power firmware on the I/O drawer was taking place over the SPCN cables.

• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B70069D9, which indicates a host Ethernet adapter (HEA) failure, to be intermittently logged after a node repair operation.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRCs B170E540, B181F02D and B700F103 during a hot node upgrade (memory), or hot node repair, of node A.

02/21/11

• HIPER: IBM testing has uncovered a potential undetected data corruption issue when a mobility operation is performed on an AMS (Active Memory Sharing) partition.  The data corruption can occur in rare instances due to a problem in IBM firmware.  This issue was discovered during internal IBM testing, and has not been reported on any customer system. IBM recommends that systems running on EM340_075 or later move to EM350_103 to pick up the fix for this potential problem.  (Firmware levels older than EM340_075 are not exposed to the problem.)
• On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer attached, and a PCI-E adapter in the CEC, a problem was fixed that caused the system to crash during a page migration operation with SRC B700F103.
  
• On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer attached, a problem was fixed that caused a partition to crash during a page migration operation.
  
• A problem was fixed that caused a partition to crash with SRC BA330002 after several concurrent installations of system firmware, or partition migrations, without a reboot.
• A problem was fixed that caused AIX licensing issues when migrating a partition from a P6 to a P7 system.
• On systems running IBM i partitions, a problem was fixed that caused SRC BA040030 to be erroneously logged, and a call home to be made, even though the partition booted successfully.

10/26/10

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• HIPER for 8234-EMA and 9117-MMA systems:  On 8234-EMA (Power 560 Express) and 9117-MMA (Power 570) systems,  the firmware has been enhanced to improve reporting of power supply fan problems, which reduces the potential of a unplanned system outage.
• HIPER:  On systems using the HEA (host Ethernet adapter) function, and on which a CEC concurrent maintenance operation that requires a node evacuation is being done, this fix corrects an issue that has the potential to corrupt information stored in the system memory, which may cause undetected data errors.  This issue was discovered during internal IBM testing, and while it has not been reported on any customer systems, IBM strongly recommends that this fix be applied to all model MMA systems that are running AIX partitions.
• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused the HMC to show the server's status as incomplete, and SRC B7000602 to be logged against SFLPHMCCMDTASK in serviceable events.  This problem can also cause the system to crash when it occurs.
• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused repeated reset/reloads of the service processor, and fail-overs, to occur after a hypervisor-initiated reset/reload of the service processor was completed.  That led to loss of communication between the service processor and the hypervisor (indicated by SRC B182951C).
  
• On 9117-MMA (Power 570) systems with 3 or 4 processor drawers, this service pack also fixes a problem that prevented the power supply fan speed in these drawers from adjusting to changes in the ambient temperature.
• The firmware was enhanced to log SRC B181D30B as informational instead of predictive.
  
• The firmware was enhanced to list the attached devices when viewing the adapter information for a partition profile on the HMC GUI.
  
• A problem was fixed that caused the hypervisor to issue almost continuous reset/reload requests to the service processor.

• On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 I/O drawer attached, the firmware was enhanced to allow the drawer to power on with only one working offline converter assembly (OCA).
• The firmware was enhanced to support the network installation of the IBM i operating system from the hardware management console (HMC) command line interface (CLI).
• On systems using the IPv6 protocol, a problem was fixed that caused valid link local and unique link local addresses to be erroneously invalidated.  This prevented the port with that address from being used for network boot or network installation.

HMC-Managed Systems

06/30/10

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• A problem was fixed that caused a call home to be erroneously made with SRC B181E911, and a service processor dump to be taken unnecessarily.
  
• A problem was fixed that caused the HMC to show a status of "Incomplete" for the managed system, and numerous service processor dumps to be generated.

• On systems running the IBM i operating system, a problem was fixed that caused a DLPAR move operation with an IOP (I/O processor) and IOA (I/O adapter) to fail intermittently.  The DLPAR operation was successful, but the IOA failed to power on in the new partition.

• A problem was fixed that would cause a concurrent maintenance operation to fail if the HMC was rebooted before the previous CM operation was complete.
  

05/10/10

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• DEFERRED, HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused SRC B113E504 with word 8 of the SRC = 074B001F or, 0197001F on 8234-EMA systems with processor F/C 7537, and 9406-MMA and 9117-MMA systems with processor F/Cs 7387, 7388 and 7540.
  
• The firmware was enhanced to dynamically update the IPL speed on the control (operator) panel when the IPL speed is changed by another method.
• On systems running EM350_xxx firmware, a problem was fixed the prevented the reset/reload bit from being set correctly in a service processor error log entry.

• On systems with F/C 5802 or F/C 5877 I/O drawers attached, the firmware was enhanced to prevent SRCs 10001510, 10001512, 10001520, and 10001522 from being erroneously logged when A/C power was removed and reapplied when the drawer is powered off.
  
• On systems with redundant service processors, a problem was fixed that caused SRC B181E617 to be erroneously logged and a service processor dump to be unnecessarily generated.
  

Concurrent maintenance (CM) firmware fixes


• On systems with F/C 5802 or F/C 5877 I/O drawers attached and a boot device in the drawer, a problem was fixed that prevented a partition from booting after the concurrent repair of the GX adapter that connects the 5802 or 5877 drawer to the system, or to the node that contains the GX adapter.
  

03/15/10

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRCs B700F103 and B181F0E7, if the server was running AIX and had a  F/C 5802 or 5877 drawer (in a 19" rack), or F/C 5803 or 5873 drawer (in a 24" rack), attached.
• DEFERRED:   This fix corrects the handling of a specific processor instruction sequence that has the potential to result in undetected data errors.  This specific instruction sequence has only been observed in a small number of highly tuned Floating Point intensive applications.  However, it is strongly recommended that this fix be applied to all POWER6 systems.  This fix has the potential to decrease system performance on applications that make extensive use of floating point divide, square root, or estimate instructions.
  
• A problem was fixed that prevented an SRC from being recorded in the service processor dump produced by a host-initiated reset.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC 10009135, followed by 10009139, to be erroneously logged.  These SRCs indicate a system power control network (SPCN) loop is being broken, then re-established.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain rare circumstances, caused a partition to hang when being shut down.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to hang with SRCs B182953C, B182954C and B17BE434 being logged.
• The firmware was enhanced to detect and handle 12X InfiniBand I/O drawer cabling errors better.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain rare circumstances, caused the system to become unresponsive and appear to hang  when page migration occurred on a PCIe slot.

• A problem was fixed that caused a virtual SCSI or virtual fibre channel adapter to be seen by the operating system as not bootable when it was added to a partition using a dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) operation.
• On systems running IBM i, a problem was fixed that caused booting the operating system from a fibre channel device to fail with SRC 576B8301.
• On systems with a F/C 5802 or 5877 drawer attached, a problem was fixed that could impact the performance of a 4-port Ethernet adapter F/C 5272, 5275, 5279, 5280, 5525, 5526, or 5527 installed in that drawer.
• In partitions running AIX or Linux, a problem was fixed that caused the addition of an I/O slot to a partition using a dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) add operation to fail.
• On systems with shared processors, a problem was fixed that caused the partitions to hang and become unresponsive for very short periods of time.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the IPv6 DHCP address from being displayed on the advanced system management interface (ASMI) network configuration screens when IPv6 and DHCP were enabled.  This only occurred on systems with virtual LAN (VLAN) addresses (such as eth0.30, eth0.31), and when IPv6 addresses were assigned to the eth0.xx interface.
• On systems running redundant VIOS partitions, a problem was fixed that prevented Ethernet traffic from being properly bridged between the two partitions.  This problem also prevented shared Ethernet adapter failover from working correctly.

Concurrent maintenance (CM) firmware fixes 
• A problem was fixed that prevented the concurrent repair of a redundant service processor.
• A problem was fixed that caused unpredictable system behavior if a capacity on demand (CoD) or a virtualization engine technology (VET) activation code was entered and accepted after a node 0 evacuation was done.  The unpredictable machine behavior might also have occurred, if a node 0 evacuation failed, a system dump was taken, and a memory-preserving IPL was then initiated.
• A problem was fixed that caused a concurrent maintenance operation after a node evacuation to fail.  When this problem occurred, the system erroneously states that a platform memory dump is pending.
• A problem was fixed that prevented a concurrent maintenance operation from completing successfully.

10/30/09

New Features and Functions:

• Support for the concurrent removal of 12X-attached 19" I/O drawers.
• Support for F/C 5877, the diskless version of 19" I/O drawer F/C 5802.
• Support for a USB-attached half-high 5.25" backup device using a removable hard disk drive (HDD).
• Support for a platform dump that is not disruptive.
• Support for i5/OS multipath storage I/O through VIOS partitions.

• A problem was fixed that might cause a concurrent firmware maintenance (CFM) operation to fail repeatedly, or a concurrent maintenance (CM) operation to fail repeatedly, when a large number of I/O loop errors were being logged during the CFM operation.
• The firmware was enhanced to handle system dumps (SYSDUMPs) larger than 4GB in size.
• On systems running system firmware release EM340, a problem was fixed that caused a dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) operation on memory to fail until the platform was rebooted.
• The firmware was enhanced to improve the performance of the F/C 5732, 5735 and 5769 PCI-E adapters.
• A problem was fixed that caused a repair and verify (R&V) operation on the HMC to fail with the message "Exception encountered while rendering panel as HTML".
• The firmware was enhanced such that SRCs B181F126, B181F127, and B181F129 are correctly logged, and no longer calls home unnecessarily for these SRCs.
• The firmware was enhanced to more accurately describe the reason memory was deconfigured on the advanced system management interface (ASMI) memory deconfiguration screen.
• On systems using the HEA (host Ethernet adapter), also know as the Integrated Virtual Ethernet (IVE) function, a problem was fixed that caused link failures if the HEA was connected to certain third-party Ethernet switches.  A problem causing an unexpected increment in the Pxs_TXIME register, but not affecting network performance, was also fixed.
  

• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B181A494 to be erroneously logged if a concurrent maintenance operation took longer than 60 minutes.
• On systems with four drawers, a problem was fixed that caused the service processor to perform a reset/reload, which caused a concurrent maintenance operation to fail, on the fourth drawer.

12/01/10

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• HIPER:  On systems using the HEA (host Ethernet adapter) function, and on which a CEC concurrent maintenance operation that requires a node evacuation is being done, this fix corrects an issue that has the potential to corrupt information stored in the system memory, which may cause undetected data errors.  This issue was discovered during internal IBM testing, and while it has not been reported on any customer systems, IBM strongly recommends that this fix be applied to all model MMA systems that are running AIX partitions.
• A problem was fixed that caused the HMC to show a status of "Incomplete" for the managed system, and numerous service processor dumps to be generated.
• A problem was fixed that caused the hardware called out for SRC B1xxF201 to be incorrect.
• The firmware was enhanced to log SRC B181D30B as informational instead of predictive.
• The firmware was enhanced to list the attached devices when viewing the adapter information for a partition profile on the HMC GUI.
  
• A problem was fixed that caused the HMC2 port on the advanced system management interface (ASMI) to erroneously default to static IP addressing instead of dynamic.
  

• HIPER for 8234-EMA and 9117-MMA systems:  On 8234-EMA (Power 560 Express) and 9117-MMA (Power 570) systems,  the firmware has been enhanced to improve reporting of power supply fan problems, which reduces the potential of a unplanned system outage.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the timed-power-on function from turning the system back on if the service processor's clock was adjusted to an earlier time.  This problem could occur during the fall when clocks are set back when daylight savings time ends, for example.
• On 9117-MMA (Power 570) systems with 3 or 4 processor drawers, this service pack also fixes a problem that prevented the power supply fan speed in these drawers from adjusting to changes in the ambient temperature.
• A problem was fixed that caused a partition to fail to reboot, or fail to boot if it had been shut down once since the platform was booted, with SRC B2001230 and word 3 = 000000BF.  This failure can be seen on a partition that owns a PCI, PCI-E, or PCI-X slot.

05/19/10

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• DEFERRED, HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused SRC B113E504 with word 8 of the SRC = 074B001F or, 0197001F on 8234-EMA systems with processor F/C 7537, and 9406-MMA and 9117-MMA systems with processor F/Cs 7387, 7388 and 7540.
• DEFERRED:   This fix corrects the handling of a specific processor instruction sequence that has the potential to result in undetected data errors.  This specific instruction sequence has only been observed in a small number of highly tuned floating point-intensive applications.  However, it is strongly recommended that this fix be applied to all POWER6 systems.  This fix has the potential to decrease system performance on applications that make extensive use of floating point divide, square root, or estimate instructions.
• A problem was fixed that prevented an SRC from being recorded in the service processor dump produced by a host-initiated reset.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to become unresponsive and appear to hang  when page migration occurred on a PCIe slot.
• The firmware was enhanced to dynamically update the IPL speed on the control (operator) panel when the IPL speed is changed by another method.

• A problem was fixed that caused a virtual SCSI or virtual fibre channel adapter to be seen by the operating system as not bootable when it was added to a partition using a dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) operation.
• In partitions running AIX or Linux, a problem was fixed that caused the addition of an I/O slot to a partition using a dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) add operation to fail.
• On systems running redundant VIOS partitions, a problem was fixed that prevented Ethernet traffic from being properly bridged between the two partitions.  This problem also prevented shared Ethernet adapter failover from working correctly.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRC B7000103 when a concurrent maintenance operation was performed on an I/O slot directly from a partition (using AIX SMIT or IBM i HST).
• A problem was fixed that caused a system or partition running Linux to crash when the "serv_config -l" command was run.
• On systems running active memory sharing (AMS), the firmware was enhanced so that error messages indicating "out of compliance" issues with the memory (HMC SRC HSCL031F) will not be generated if the user allocates more memory than is installed in the system.  (Allocating more memory than is installed in the system is supported in active memory sharing.)
• A problem was fixed that caused the hypervisor to loop unnecessarily and consume too many processor cycles.  This impacted the performance of the system.

• A problem was fixed that caused the concurrent addition of a node to fail with SRC B181A422.
• A problem was fixed that caused unpredictable system behavior if a capacity on demand (CoD) or a virtualization engine technology (VET) activation code was entered and accepted after a node 0 evacuation was done.  The unpredictable machine behavior might also have occurred, if a node 0 evacuation failed, a system dump was taken, and a memory-preserving IPL was then initiated.
• A problem was fixed that caused a concurrent maintenance operation after a node evacuation to fail.  When this problem occurred, the system erroneously states that a platform memory dump is pending.
• A problem was fixed that prevented a concurrent maintenance operation from completing successfully.
• On systems with F/C 5802 or F/C 5877 I/O drawers attached and a boot device in the drawer, a problem was fixed that prevented a partition from booting after the concurrent repair of the GX adapter that connects the 5802 or 5877 drawer to the system, or to the node that contains the GX adapter.

02/02/10

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• A problem was fixed that prevented an automatic reboot after some types of memory-related crashes.
• A problem was fixed that prevented function 30 on the physical control (operator) panel from the displaying all of the IP address information for the sibling service processor.
• The firmware was enhanced such that SRCs B181F126, B181F127, and B181F129 are correctly handled, and no longer cause unnecessary calls home to be made.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to hang with SRCs B182953C, B182954C, and B17BE434 being logged.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC 10009135, followed by 10009139, to be erroneously logged.  These SRCs indicate a system power control network (SPCN) loop is being broken, then re-established.
• On systems using the HEA (host Ethernet adapter), also know as the Integrated Virtual Ethernet (IVE) function, a problem was fixed that caused link failures if the HEA was connected to certain third-party Ethernet switches.  A problem causing an unexpected increment in the Pxs_TXIME register, but not affecting network performance, was also fixed.
  

• On systems with four drawers, a problem was fixed that caused the service processor to perform a reset/reload, which caused a concurrent maintenance operation to fail, on the fourth drawer.
• A problem was fixed that prevented a newly-installed service processor from becoming the primary service processor after a concurrent maintenance repair operation on the first or second drawer.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B7005603 to be erroneously logged during any type of concurrent maintenance operation on an enclosure.

09/23/09

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• DEFERRED:  The firmware was enhanced to reduce the number of correctable errors (CEs) being erroneously logged against the memory bus with SRC B124E504. 
• The firmware was enhanced such that SRC B181F126 is correctly managed, and no longer calls home  unnecessarily for this problem.

08/20/09

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• DEFERRED:  This fix corrects the handling of a specific processor instruction sequence that was generated on a particular heavily-tuned High Performance Computing (HPC) application. This specific instruction sequence has the potential to produce an incorrect result. This instruction sequence has only been observed in a single HPC application.  However, it is strongly recommended that you apply this fix. 

• HIPER:  for systems with F/C 5802 or 5877 drawers attached:  A problem was fixed that prevented node concurrent maintenance operations on systems with F/C 5802 or 5877 drawers attached to them.
• On systems with F/C 5802 or 5877 drawers attached, a problem was fixed that prevented an I/O slot's power LED from accurately reflecting the state of the I/O slot in a 5802 or 5877 drawer, under certain circumstances.
• On systems running system firmware EM340_075 and Active Memory Sharing, a problem was fixed that might have caused a partition to fail to boot with SRC B700F103 if the partition had more than 24 virtual processors assigned to it.
• On systems running system firmware EM340_075 and Active Memory Sharing, a problem was fixed that might have caused a partition to lose I/O entitlement after the partition was moved from one system to another using PowerVM Mobility.
• On systems running system firmware release EM340, a problem was fixed that might have caused the I/O performance to be degraded if a node evacuation operation was performed (as part of a concurrent maintenance operation to fix a failing I/O adapter or drawer) after the repair was complete.
• On systems with external I/O towers attached, the firmware was enhanced so that the system will not crash when SRC B7006981 is logged for certain types of I/O hardware failures. 

• On model MMA systems, the firmware was enhanced such that an invalid enclosure serial number will not cause the node evacuation phase of a concurrent maintenance operation to fail.  A small number of model MMA enclosures may have an invalid serial number (such as "DQ1234 " or "DQ1234#) due to the I/O backplane having been replaced in a previous maintenance operation.
• A problem was fixed that might have caused the performance of an I/O loop (attached to a 12X I/O adapter) to be degraded if a B7006982, B7006984, B7006985, B70069F2, B70069F3, or B70069F4 SRC is logged after a concurrent maintenance operation on that loop.
• A problem was fixed that caused concurrent maintenance operations on memory DIMMs to fail if the replacement DIMMs were functionally equivalent to the original DIMMs, but did not have the same CCIN (customer card identification number).
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1xxB889 SRCs to be erroneously logged during a node evacuation operation.  (Node evacuation is one step in a concurrent maintenance operation on a node.)
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash during a hot node or GX adapter repair with certain hardware configurations.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash during a hot node repair or upgrade.

05/26/09

New features and functions:

- DEFERRED: Support for F/C 5802 (19" I/O drawer) and 5803 (24" I/O drawer).

Attention: After this level of firmware is installed, the platform must be powered off, then powered on, before the 5802 or 5803 I/O drawer is added to the system.

- DEFERRED: Support for POWER VM Active Memory Sharing.

Attention: After this level of firmware is installed, the platform must be powered off, then powered on to activate the POWER VM Active Memory Sharing function

Attention: If EM340_075 has been installed, and the new POWER VM Active Memory Sharing function has been activated, and you want to back-level the system firmware, the active memory sharing pool must be deactivated and deleted prior to back-leveling the system firmware. IBM does not recommend back-leveling the system firmware.

System firmware changes that affect all systems:

• A problem was fixed that caused the detailed data at the end of an "early power off warning type 5" AIX error log entry to be filled with invalid data instead of zeros.
• A problem was fixed that prevented all of the necessary files from being synchronized between the primary and the secondary service processors. One possible symptom of this problem was the time-of-day clocks being out of synch after a service processor failover.
• The firmware was enhanced to include processor card #1 in the list of field replaceable units (FRUs) that are called out if an I2C bus error occurs when accessing the processor backplane's vital product data (VPD).
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1818601 to be logged, and a service processor dump to be generated, at runtime.
• A problem was fixed that caused the number of empty GX adapter slots displayed by the advanced system management interface (ASMI) to be incorrect.
• A problem was fixed that caused the amber identify LED, instead of the green power-on LED, to be lit on the first drawer of a model MMA (Power 570) system.
• The firmware was enhanced so that if the secondary service processor remains hung after the primary service processor successfully boots, a predictive error will be logged, and a call home will be made.
• A problem was fixed that caused the service processor diagnostics to report a "TOD (time-of-day) overflow" error, instead of an uncorrectable memory error, when failures occurred on memory DIMMs.
• The firmware was enhanced such that if an attempt is made to enable redundancy when the system is booting, the error log entry that is made will be informational instead of predictive.
• The firmware was enhanced so that a call home will be made if the hypervisor issues a "terminate immediate" interrupt.
• The firmware was enhanced so that the service processor only logs SRC B1A38B24 when a valid network setup error is found. The callouts for this SRC were also improved.
• The firmware was enhanced so that SRCs B181720D, B1818A13, and B1818A0F, and occasionally a service processor dump, will not be generated when the service processor's two Ethernet interfaces are on the same subnet. (This is an invalid configuration.)

• In systems using InfiniBand switches for processor clustering, a problem was fixed that caused packets to be dropped under certain circumstances.
• A problem was fixed that caused the migration of a partition with more than 900 virtual slots defined, from a system running firmware EM320 to a system running firmware EM340, to fail.
• On systems running firmware release EM340, a problem was fixed that caused data in the platform dump to be invalid.
• On systems with external drawers or towers, a problem was fixed that caused SRC xxxx6981, xxxx6982, or xxxx6985 to be logged. When this problem occurred, some I/O slots might also be missing from the resource lists. 
• On systems using on/off (temporary) memory capacity on demand (COD), the firmware was enhanced to improve memory COD's interaction with other tools (such as Inventory Scout in AIX), and to make the billing process easier.
• On systems with two hardware management consoles (HMCs), the firmware was enhanced so that the system will not restart and generate a service processor dump when the two HMCs are in the same subnet. (This is an invalid configuration.)

• DEFERRED: A problem was fixed that caused SRC B150A422 to be erroneously logged, and the advanced system management interface (ASMI) to erroneously show deconfigured processor cores, if system firmware was installed while a node was deactivated due a concurrent maintenance operation.
• DEFERRED: A problem was fixed that caused SRC B181B171 to be logged, and the system to crash, during a concurrent node repair or concurrent GX adapter repair.
• A problem was fixed that might cause a concurrent node repair, a concurrent I/O expansion unit repair, a concurrent PCI slot repair, or a DLPAR removal or moving of I/O slots to fail if the I/O hardware involved is in a failed state. 
• A problem was fixed that caused a hot node repair operation to fail if 16GB huge pages were configured on the system.
• A problem was fixed that caused a concurrent node add or repair operation to fail if the operation immediately followed an upgrade of system firmware from EM330_xxx to EM340_039, then a concurrent installation of EM340_061.
• A problem was fixed that caused a partition reboot to hang at AIX progress code 0581, after the concurrent replacement of the I/O backplane in a model MMA drawer, when the partition owned resources in the drawer that was repaired.

04/20/09

System firmware changes that affect all systems:

• DEFERRED: A problem was fixed that caused the advanced system management interface (ASMI) menus to become unresponsive, and the system to appear to hang, when a GX adapter slot reservation was attempted when the system was at service processor standby.
• A problem was fixed that caused the service processor diagnostics to report a "TOD (time-of-day) overflow" error, instead of an uncorrectable memory error, when failures occurred on memory DIMMs.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the service processor from automatically booting from the permanent (or P) side if the temporary (or T) side of the firmware flash was corrupted. When the problem occurred, the service processor stopped instead of booting from the P side.
• A problem was fixed that might have caused the system to crash when a processor was dynamically removed when the system was running. If the system is running the EM340 release of system firmware, this problem can also occur during a concurrent maintenance operation.
• The firmware was enhanced such that data corruption in the Anchor (VPD) will be corrected by the firmware, rather than having to have the Anchor card replaced.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the system from powering on after the "reset to factory settings" option was selected in the advanced system management interface (ASMI) menus.
• The firmware was enhanced to improve the service processor's capability to recover from bad bits in the flash memory. A predictive error, or an unrecoverable error, will be logged against the card that contains the system firmware if the number of correctable or uncorrectable errors exceeds the threshold.
• A problem was fixed that caused non-terminating SRCs (such as B1818A1E) that indicate registry read errors to be logged during a disruptive installation of system firmware.
• A problem was fixed that caused a partition being migrated to crash on the target system.
• On systems running the EM340 release of system firmware, a problem was fixed that caused an abort code to be logged in the virtual input/output system (VIOS) error log on the source system after a successful partition migration.
• A problem was fixed that caused a partition being migrated to become unresponsive on the target system when firmware-assisted dump was enabled.
• The firmware was enhanced so that SRC BA210012 will not generate a call home when logged.
• The callouts for SRC B181E6ED, which is logged when a system is booted with service processor redundancy disabled, were improved to indicate that redundancy was disabled rather than calling out a firmware failure.
• A problem was fixed that prevented all of the necessary files from being synchronized between the primary and secondary service processors. One possible symptom of this problem was the time-of-day clocks being out of synch after a service processor failover.

• On systems with external I/O drawers, a problem was fixed that could cause the system to hang on checkpoint C700406E during a "warm" reboot (a reboot in which the processor drawer is power-cycled but the I/O drawers are not).
• On systems running system firmware release EM340 and IBM i partitions, a problem was fixed that caused message CPF9E7F, CPF9E2D or CPF9E5E (which indicates a licensing key problem) to be received by the IBM i partitions when the number of physical processors was greater than the number of IBM i licenses.
• On systems with virtual fiber channel disks, a problem was fixed that prevented the system management services (SMS) from displaying the virtual fiber channel disks if the virtual fiber channel server reported that any of them were reserved. 

• DEFERRED: On systems running system firmware release EM340, a problem was fixed that caused the system to checkstop during the "hot add" of a GX I/O adapter card.
• A problem was fixed that caused the fans in a drawer that was added in a "hot drawer add" operation to run at high speed.
• A problem was fixed that caused a concurrent maintenance operation to be halted with SRC B181A433 being logged.
• A problem was fixed that caused concurrent maintenance operations, if attempted immediately after a disruptive firmware installation, to be disabled.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B150D15E to be erroneously logged during a concurrent drawer addition or concurrent memory upgrade.
• A problem was fixed that caused concurrent maintenance operations, if attempted immediately after a concurrent firmware installation, to be disabled.
• A problem was fixed that caused a concurrent node add to fail after a disruptive firmware installation with SRC B181A422 being logged.
• A problem was fixed that prevented a concurrent add or repair of a GX adapter from being re-attempted if a reset/reload of the primary service processor occurred during the GX add part of the initial procedure.

12/09/08

System firmware changes that affect certain systems:

• On model 9117-MMA systems with F/C 7540 (POWER6, 64-bit, 4.2 GHz, four core processor) installed, and all model 8234-EMA systems, a problem was fixed that caused a processor to checkstop after a reset/reload of the service processor. SRC B181D15F, B181E911 and/or B150B145 may be logged, and service processor dumps may be present, when this problem occurs.

11/21/08

New Features and Functions:

• Support for the model 8234-EMA.
• Support for the 8GB fiber channel adapter, F/C 5735.
• Support for a virtual tape device.
• Support for USB flash memory storage devices.
• Support in the service processor firmware for IPv6.
• Support in the hypervisor for three types of hardware performance monitors.
• Support for installing AIX and Linux using the integrated virtualization manager (IVM).
• On systems running AIX, support was added for an enhanced power and thermal management capability. When static power save mode is selected, AIX will "fold" processors to free processors which can then be put in the "nap" state.
• Support for CIM (common information model) power instrumentation in the service processor firmware.
• Support for enhanced power management, including dynamic voltage and frequency slewing.
• Support for processor cards with two dual-core module (DCM) processors; the maximum configuration of the model MMA with these processor cards is 32 processors.
• On systems that have temperature and power management device (TPMD) hardware, support was added for a "soft" power cap.
• Support for concurrent processor node addition, as well as hot and cold node repair. 

• A problem was fixed that prevented the default partition environment in the advanced system management interface (ASMI) power on/off menu from being set to "i5/OS" when it was blank.
• The firmware was enhanced so that SRC B1xx3409, which indicates an invalid state change (such as pushing the power on button twice quickly) will be logged as informational instead of predictive, and will not call home.
• A problem was fixed that caused a service processor dump to be taken and SRC B181EF88 to be logged, even though the operation of the system was not affected.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain rare circumstances, caused SRC B181E411 to be logged, a call home to be made, and a service processor dump to be taken.
• The firmware was enhanced so that SRC B1812224, which indicates that the user attempted to enable redundancy when the managed system was booting, will be logged as informational instead of predictive.
• A problem was fixed that prevented error log entries on the secondary service processor from generating a serviceable event on the hardware management console (HMC).
• A problem was fixed that prevented some of the service processor error log entries from being see when the advanced system management interface (ASMI) menus were accessed on a TTY terminal.

• On systems with the integrated x-series adapter (IXA), a problem was fixed that prevented the creation of a system plan on the HMC.
• On model MMA systems shipped before mid-May 2008, a problem was fixed the prevented RB keyword0 from being set in the advanced system management interface (ASMI) system keywords menu.
• On systems with multiple host channel adapter (HCA) cards, a problem was fixed that logical ports on the HCA cards to be intermittently inactive.
• In networks using a time server, a problem was fixed that caused the date on a client system to be reset to 1969 if the client system lost power.

10/22/09

System firmware changes that affect all systems

• HIPER:  A problem was fixed that caused the migration of a partition using shared processors to fail with a reason code of 4180043, or caused the source system to hang or crash.
• DEFERRED:  This fix corrects the handling of a specific processor instruction sequence that was generated on a particular heavily-tuned High Performance Computing (HPC) application. This specific instruction sequence has the potential to produce an incorrect result. This instruction sequence has only been observed in a single HPC application.  However, it is strongly recommended that you apply this fix.
• The firmware was enhanced such that SRCs B181F126, B181F127, and B181F129 are correctly  managed, and no longer cause unnecessary calls home.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B7005603 to be erroneously logged when a F/C 5802 or 5877 19" drawer was concurrently added to the system.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1817201 to be erroneously logged during the installation of system firmware.

• On systems using on/off (temporary) memory capacity on demand (COD), the firmware was enhanced  to improve the billing process for this feature.

05/04/09

System firmware changes that affect all systems:

• DEFERRED: The firmware was enhanced so that the system recovers gracefully from an I/O load time-out, rather than issuing a machine check, which crashes the system.
• A problem was fixed that caused the service processor diagnostics to report a "TOD (time-of-day) overflow" error, instead of an uncorrectable memory error, when failures occurred on memory DIMMs.
• A problem was fixed that, in certain configurations, caused the removal of a host Ethernet adapter (HEA) port to fail when using a dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) operation.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain circumstances, prevented the operating system from recovering a PCI-E adapter on which a temporary enhanced error handling (EEH) error occurred.
• A problem was fixed that caused the hardware management console (HMC) to show the managed system's status as incomplete after adding a drawer using the concurrent maintenance operation.
• The firmware was enhanced to improve the service processor's capability to recover from bad bits in the flash memory. A predictive error, or an unrecoverable error, will be logged against the card that contains the system firmware if the number of correctable or uncorrectable errors exceeds the threshold.
• The firmware was enhanced so that a call home will be made if the hypervisor issues a "terminate immediate" interrupt. 
• A problem was fixed that prevented service processor and hypervisor error log entries from being reported to the operating system after a successful partition migration. This problem only affected the partition that was migrated.
• The firmware was enhanced so that if a system with redundant service processors is booted with redundancy disabled, a call home error will be logged.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the system from powering on after the "reset to factory settings" option was selected in the advanced system management interface (ASMI) menus.
• A problem was fixed that caused the migration of an AIX or Linux partition to fail when firmware-assisted dump was enabled. When this problem occurs, the partition becomes unresponsive on the target system, and the target system may have to be rebooted to recover.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the service processor from automatically booting from the permanent (or P side) if the temporary (or T side) of the firmware flash was corrupted. When the problem occurred, the service processor stopped instead of booting from the P side.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1818601 to be logged, and a service processor dump to be generated, at runtime.
• The firmware was enhanced to include processor card #1 in the list of field replaceable units (FRUs) that are called out if an I2C bus error occurs when accessing the processor backplane's vital product data (VPD).
• A problem was fixed that prevented all of the necessary files from being synchronized between the primary and the secondary service processors. One possible symptom of this problem was the time-of-day clocks being out of synch after a service processor failover.

• On systems with a host Ethernet adapter (HEA) or host channel adapter (HCA) assigned to a Linux partition, a problem was fixed that prevented the partition from booting if 512 GB, 1 TB, or 1.5 TB of memory was assigned to the partition. When this problem occurred, SRC B700F105 was logged.
• On systems with multiple host channel adapter (HCA) cards, a problem was fixed that logical ports on the HCA cards to be intermittently inactive.
• On systems with the integrated xSeries adapter (IXA), a problem was fixed that prevented the creation of a system plan on the HMC.
• On systems with redundant service processors, a problem was fixed that caused registry read errors or registry value errors to be generated during the installation of system firmware.
• On systems running AIX partitions, a problem was fixed that caused AIX to erroneously log a hardware error in which the LABEL field is "INTRPPC_ERR", and the INTERRUPT LEVEL is "0009 0001", after a concurrent firmware update or partition migration. This error did not affect the operation of the system or partition.

09/24/08

System firmware changes that affect all systems:

• DEFERRED and HIPER: A problem was fixed that, under certain rarely occurring circumstances, an application could cause a processor to go into an error state, and the system to crash.
• DEFERRED and HIPER: The system initialization settings were changed to reduce the likelihood of a system crash under certain circumstances.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused the system to terminate abnormally with SRC B131E504.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused a system to fail to reboot after a B1xxE504 SRC was logged due to a processor interconnection bus failure. The same SRC, B1xx E504, was logged when the reboot failed.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed that might cause a partition to crash during a partition migration before the migration was complete.
• DEFERRED: A problem was fixed such that under certain rare circumstances, if a service processor failover occurred, the new secondary service processor was not able to communicate with the system.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1818A10 to be erroneously generated after the successful installation of system firmware.
• Enhancements were made to the firmware to improve the FRU callouts for certain types of failures of the time-of-day clock circuitry.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain rarely occurring circumstances, caused the system to crash if an L2 or L3 cache failure occurred.
• The firmware was enhanced so that the contents of /tmp are included when a service processor dump is taken.
• A problem was fixed that caused a predictive SRC, B181EF88, to be erroneously logged after a successful installation of system firmware, and a subsequent slow-mode IPL, of the system.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain rarely occurring circumstances, caused the system to crash with SRC B7005191 being logged.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the system from rebooting if an error occurred during a memory-preserving IPL.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the diagnostic commands in AIX (diag and lsmcode, for example) from working after a partition migration.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain rarely occurring circumstances, caused a partition shutdown or partition reboot to hang with SRC D200B077.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain rarely occurring circumstances, caused the hypervisor to loose its communication link to the service processor and log SRC A181D000.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain rarely occurring circumstances, might have caused dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) operations on memory to fail.
• A problem was fixed that prevented I/O hardware operations from completing before dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) operations were performed on memory. This caused PCI bus errors, and multiple instances of SRC B7006971 to be logged.
• A problem was fixed in the hypervisor that, under certain rarely occurring circumstances, caused a system-level activation to fail.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B7006971 to be generated because the firmware was incorrectly performing operations on PCI-Express I/O adapters during dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) operations on memory.
• A problem was fixed that might have caused a processor checkstop after a node repair or node add operation.
• A problem was fixed that caused the message "BA330000malloc error!" to be displayed on the operating system console after a partition migration, even though SRC BA330000 had not been logged. When this problem occurred, the partition migration appeared to be successful. However, a process within the partition was either hung or had failed, and in most cased the partition had to be rebooted to fully recover.
• The firmware was enhanced to improve the description and service actions that are logged with SRC BA210012.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain rare circumstances, prevented a partition migration from completing successfully if processors were removed from the partition being migrated prior to the migration using dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) operations.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain rare circumstances, caused a system crash during partition migration operations.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain rare circumstances, caused the hypervisor to crash when it was booting.

• On systems that are managed by a hardware management console (HMC), a problem was fixed that caused the HMC to show an "Incomplete" state after it attempted to read a file with an incorrect size from the service processor (or system controller). This problem also occurred if the "factory configuration" option was used on the advanced system management interface (ASMI) menus. 
• On systems with I/O drawers attached, a problem was fixed that might have caused some I/O slots in the drawers not to be configured when the system was booted.
• On i5 partitions using IOP-based I/O adapters which are configured to use i5 clustering (SAN), a problem was fixed that caused the failover of an I/O drawer or tower, to a system which previously owned the drawer or tower, to fail.
• On systems with a large number of fibre channel disks, a problem was fixed that caused SRC BA210003 to logged (which called out the fibre channel adapter) when the system management services (SMS) boot firmware was searching for a boot disk.
• In systems with clustered processors, various problems were fixed in the InfiniBand interconnection networks. 

06/09/08

System firmware changes that affect all systems:

• DEFERRED and HIPER: The processor initialization settings were changed to reduce the likelihood of a processor going into an error state and causing a checkstop or system crash.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed in the hypervisor that might cause a partition migration to fail.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused large numbers of enhanced error handling (EEH) errors to be logged against the 4-port gigabit Ethernet adapter, F/C 5740, under certain circumstances.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused the firmware to erroneously log VPD errors against the processors. This prevented drawers from powering on.
• HIPER: On system with a redundant service processor installed and enabled, a problem was fixed that caused a communications hang between the two service processors. When this occurred, it triggered a reset/reload of the primary service processor, and the resulting fail-over to the secondary service processor failed in such a way that the system crashed and logged SRC B1813410. Service processor dumps were also taken.
• HIPER: On systems with redundant service processors installed and enabled, the firmware was enhanced so that if a failure occurs during a service processor failover, the firmware will attempt to reset/reload one of the service processors. This may allow the system to recover and stay up instead of crashing.
• HIPER: On systems with redundant service processors installed and enabled, a problem was fixed that caused the system to crash if a service processor failover occurred when the VPD files were being synchronized.
• The firmware was enhanced to improve the system memory error recovery.
• A problem was fixed that caused the /tmp directory on the service processor to fill up, which results in an out-of-memory condition. When this problem occurred, the service processor usually performed a reset/reload. This is one possible cause of SRC B1817201 being logged.
• A problem was fixed that caused panel function 02 to fail when trying to set the "next IPL speed" or "next IPL side". 
• The firmware was enhanced so that serial port S1 is not automatically designated the local console, even if the console is not selected within 60 seconds of the system is first booted. This enhancement allows the console to be selected again, if no selection was made on the previous boot, instead of defaulting to the S1 port.

Mfg Only
05/09/08

• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused a concurrent firmware installation to hang with SRC BA00E840 being logged. This problem may also cause a partition migration to hang, under certain circumstances, with the same SRC, BA00E840, being logged. This SRC will be logged when this level of firmware is installed and will generate a call home; it should be ignored. It will not be logged during subsequent installations.

Mfg Only
05/06/08

New features and functions:

• Support for the concurrent addition of a node (drawer) was added.
• Support for the "cold" repair of a node (repair with power off while other nodes are running) was added. 
• Support for IPv6 was added. For more information, see Section 2.1 Cautions, paragraph Concurrent Maintenance.
• Support for logical volumes bigger than 2 TB was added.
• Virtual switch support for virtual Ethernet devices was added. This requires HMC V7 R3.3.0.0 with efix MH01102 to be running on the HMC. 

• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused capacity-on-demand (COD) data to be retrieved in an unreadable format from the Anchor (VPD) card.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused enhanced error handling (EEH) to fail on certain I/O adapters.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed that might cause the system to terminate while IPLing partitions soon after a system boot. This problem might also have been seen if the partitions were set to "autostart". This failure is typically seen on systems with a large amount of memory; SRC B181D138 is usually logged when this error occurs.
• DEFERRED: A problem was fixed that caused the system to appear to hang with C10090B8 in the control (operator) panel during a slow mode boot.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the processor clock from being deconfigured with the fabric bus after a hardware error.
• A problem was fixed that caused the L2 deconfiguration option to be displayed advanced system management interface (ASMI) menus on systems on which it is not supported.
• A problem was fixed that caused the GX adapter slot reservation option to be displayed on the advanced system management interface (ASMI) menus on systems on which it is not supported.
• Fixes problem where wrong slot location was provided in message when no slot reservations were available for adding next Feature Code 1800 or 1802 adapter.
• A problem was fixed that caused the location code reported with enhanced error handling (EEH) errors on certain imbedded slots have a -Cx suffix instead of the correct -T# suffix for the underlying adapter. This also impacted the HMC's System Planning tool.
• A problem was fixed that caused the Linux boot loader to lose its command line parameters (and fail to boot a Linux partition) during a reconfiguration reboot.
• A problem was fixed that caused the "iSCSI" and "network1" aliases to be created incorrectly in the SMS menus; this might have prevented the system or partition from booting from that device.
• A problem was fixed that caused this informational message to be erroneously sent to the operating system console: 

• A problem was fixed that caused the AIX command lsvpd to hang if it was executed during a partition migration.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system or partition to hang at the "Welcome to AIX" banner, following an iSCSI boot, during the installation of AIX.
• A problem was fixed that caused an iSCSI login to fail under certain circumstances. When this failure occurred, the message sent to the console looked something like this:

• A problem was fixed that caused the location codes of devices attached to the integrated USB ports to have a duplicate port suffix. For example, when this problem occurred, the location code of the device was shown as:

instead of the correct location code, which is

/usb-scsi@1 U787D.001.DQDGARW-P1-T2-L1

• Two translation issues were fixed. The first one caused the string "No alias" to always be displayed on the iSCSI menus in SMS in English even though it should have been translated into the other languages that the SMS menus support. The second one caused the NIC (network interface card) parameters such as the client IP address in the SMS ping menu to be displayed with message strings in English; these should have been translated as well.
• A problem was fixed that caused the SMS menus to drop into the open firmware prompt with the message "DEFAULT CATCH!" when the ping test failed.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the operating system from setting the boot device list in NVRAM.
• A problem was fixed that caused approximately 20-25 occurrences of informational SRC B7005300 to be logged during every IPL, which was filling up the error logs.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the "100 Mbps/full duplex" setting for the HEA 1 Gbps ports from being implemented from the HMC. When this occurred, there was no error message on the HMC, but the setting never took effect.
• A problem was fixed that caused the MAC addresses displayed on the HMC, in the HEA logical port information for the second port group, to show invalid addresses.
• A problem was fixed that caused a service processor dump to be generated with SRC B181EF88 when the advanced system management interface (ASMI) client was closed abruptly, or a network failure disconnected the client and the ASMI.
• Enhancements were made to improve the field replaceable unit (FRU) isolation for phase-locked loop (PLL) clock failures on multi-CEC drawer system. SRCs B114F6D2, B114F6C1, B113F6C1, B157F12E, B18187EF, and B158E500 were typically seen with this type of failure.
• Enhancements were made to the error analysis firmware to provide better FRU callouts for certain types of processor fabric bus failures. SRCs B114E504, B114B2DF, and B181B10B were typically seen with this type of failure.
• Enhancements were made to the firmware to improve the reliability of memory DIMMs.
• A change was made to the firmware such that predictive SRCs B18138B0, B1813862, or B1813882 are now logged as informational.

• On system using the EnergyScale^(TM) technology, enhancements were made to include status, log, and error information about the Power Save mode in the service processor error logs.
• On systems with redundant service processors enabled, a problem was fixed that caused the "restore factory configuration" function on the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI) to fail.
• On systems with 7314-G30 drawers attached, a problem was fixed that caused the InfiniBand I/O device to drop packets, which resulted in an unrecoverable error.
• On systems with 7314-G30 drawers attached, a problem was fixed that caused the drawer to fail when performing concurrent maintenance on the associated InfiniBand loop.
• On systems with 7314-G30 drawers attached, a problem was fixed that caused the partition to become unresponsive when an InfiniBand cable in a redundantly-cabled loop was disconnected.

06/09/08

Fixes that affect all model MMA systems:

• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused a concurrent firmware installation to hang with SRC BA00E840 being logged. This problem may also cause a partition migration to hang, under certain circumstances, with the same SRC, BA00E840, being logged. This SRC will be logged when this level of firmware is installed and will generate a call home; it should be ignored. It will not be logged during subsequent installations.
• HIPER: On systems with redundant service processors installed and enabled, a problem was fixed that caused the system to crash if a service processor failover occurred when the VPD files were being synchronized.
• HIPER: On systems with redundant service processors installed and enabled, the firmware was enhanced so that if a failure occurs during a service processor failover, the firmware will attempt to reset/reload one of the service processors. This may allow the system to recover and stay up instead of crashing.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused the firmware to erroneously log VPD errors against the processors. This prevented drawers from powering on.

03/03/08

Fixes that affect all model MMA systems:

• DEFERRED: A problem was fixed that caused a system crash (with SRC B131E504) by changing the initialization settings of the I/O control hardware.
• A problem was fixed that could cause the hypervisor to hang after a reset/reload of the service processor.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain circumstances, caused the InfiniBand adapter to stop responding to InfiniBand requests.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1813014 to be logged after a successful system firmware installation. This SRC will be logged when this level of firmware is installed and will generate a call home; it should be ignored. It will not be logged during subsequent installations.
• The FRU list was changed so that clock card failures in a multi-drawer system will be easier to debug and require fewer parts to fix.
• A problem was fixed that caused the service processor to get stuck in a reset/reload loop, which prevented the system from booting to standby.

System firmware changes that affect certain model MMA systems:

• On systems with redundant service processors enabled, a problem was fixed that could cause a significant increase in system boot time.
• On systems with two service processors installed and with redundancy disabled, a problem was fixed that caused the secondary service processor to go into the dump state, and remain in the dump state, after a platform dump.
• On systems with redundant service processors, SRCs B1813833 and B1813834, which were being logged intermittently after a side-switch IPL, were changed to informational.
• On systems with a 1519-100 tower attached, a problem was fixed that caused the location code of a connector on the integrated virtual IOP to be displayed as Un-SE1-SE1-T1 instead of Un-SE1-T1.
• On systems with 7134-G30 I/O drawers attached in certain cabling configurations, a problem was fixed that prevented the I/O port labels from being displayed for the port location codes on the hardware topology screens.

12/03/07

New Features and Functions:

• Support for redundant service processors with failover on model MMA systems.
• Support for the concurrent addition of a RIO/HSL adapter on model MMA systems.
• Support for the concurrent replacement of a RIO/HSL adapter on model MMA systems. 
• Support for the "hyperboot" boot speed option in the power on/off menu on the Advanced System Management interface (ASMI).
• Support for the creation of multiple virtual shared processor pools (VSPPs) within the one physical pool. (In order for AIX performance tools to report the correct information on systems configured with multiple shared processor pools, a minimum of AIX 5.3 TL07 or AIX 6.1 must be running.)
• Support for the capability to move a running AIX or Linux partition from one system to another compatible system with a minimum of disruption. 
• Support for the collection of extended I/O device information (independent of the presence of an operating system) when a system is first connected to an HMC and is still in the manufacturing default state. 
• Improved VPD collection time on model MMA systems.
• Support for the migration of DDR2 memory DIMMs during the MES upgrade from a 9117-570 server to a 9117-MMA server when processor card F/C 5621 is ordered when the initial system upgrade MES order is placed.
• Support for EnergyScale^tm and Active Energy Manager^tm.  For more information on the energy management features now available,  please see the EnergyScale^tm white paper .
  

11/10/2008

System firmware changes that affect all systems:

• DEFERRED and HIPER: The system initialization settings were changed to reduce the likelihood of a system crash under certain circumstances.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused a system to fail to reboot after a B1xxE504 SRC was logged, due to a processor interconnection bus failure. The same SRC, B1xxE504, was logged when the reboot failed.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain rarely occurring circumstances, caused the system to crash if an L2 or L3 cache failure is not discovered and repaired when it initially occurs.
• The firmware was enhanced so that the contents of /tmp are included when a service processor dump is taken.
• A problem was fixed that, in certain configurations, caused the removal of a host Ethernet adapter (HEA) port using a dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) operation to fail.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain rare circumstances, caused the hypervisor to crash when it was booting with and SRC B6000103 being logged.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain circumstances, prevented the operating system from recovering a PIE adapter on which a temporary enhanced error handling (EEH) error occurred. 
• A problem was fixed that prevented service processor and hypervisor error log entries from being reported to the operating system after a successful partition migration. This problem only affected the partition that was migrated.
• The firmware was enhanced so that a call home will be made if the hypervisor issues a "terminate immediate" interrupt.

• In systems with clustered processors, various problems were fixed in the InfiniBand interconnection networks.
• On systems with a host Ethernet adapter (HEA) or host channel adapter (HCA) assigned to a Linux partition, a problem was fixed that prevented the partition from booting if 512 GB, 1 TB, or 1.5 TB of memory was assigned to the partition. When this problem occurred, SRC B700F105 was logged. 

07/30/2008

System firmware changes that affect all systems:

• DEFERRED and HIPER: The processor initialization settings were changed to reduce the likelihood of a processor going into an error state and causing a checkstop or system crash.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused large numbers of enhanced error handling (EEH) errors to be logged against the 4-port gigabit Ethernet adapter, F/C 5740, under certain circumstances.
• DEFERRED: A problem was fixed that caused informational SRCs B181B964 and B150D134 to be logged multiple times, and fill the service processor error log, during normal operation of the system.
• DEFERRED: The firmware was enhanced so that if an L3 cache controller gets deconfigured at runtime, the associated processor cores will also be deconfigured. This prevents the system from going into an error state and causing a checkstop or system crash.
• A problem was fixed that caused the /tmp directory on the service processor to fill up, which results in an out-of-memory condition. When this problem occurred, the service processor usually performed a reset/reload. This is one possible cause of SRC B1817201 being logged.
• Enhancements were made to improve the field replaceable unit (FRU) isolation for phase-locked loop (PLL) clock failures on multi-CEC drawer system. SRCs B114F6D2, B114F6C1, B113F6C1, B157F12E, B18187EF, and B158E500 were typically seen with this type of failure.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1813014 to be erroneously generated when a new level of system firmware was installed on the managed system.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B7006971 to be erroneously generated during dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) operations on memory.
• A problem was fixed that caused an "HTML viewer error", followed by the message "Cannot complete service action for reference code 'xxxxyyyy' " to occur in Service Focal Point on the HMC when trying to perform the service actions for certain SRCs.
• A problem was fixed in partition firmware that could cause a partition running AIX to crash under certain circumstances.

• On a partition running Linux, a problem was fixed that might cause the hypervisor to erroneously deconfigure a processor core.
• On partitions with a large number of hard disks attached to fibre channel adapters, a problem was fixed that might cause SRC BA210003 to be erroneously generated when the partition is booting. The partition might or might not boot when this error occurs.
• On systems with 7314-G30 drawers attached, a problem was fixed that caused the port labels to be missing on the hardware topology screens with certain cable configurations.
• On systems with 7314-G30 drawers attached, a problem was fixed that caused the partition to become unresponsive when an InfiniBand cable in a redundantly-cabled loop was disconnected.
• On systems with 7314-G30 drawers attached, a problem was fixed that might have caused some I/O slots in the drawers not to be configured when the system was booted.

02/11/2008

Fixes that affect all model MMA systems:

• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused some functions that perform hardware operations during runtime to generate temporary extended error handling (EEH) errors.
• DEFERRED: A problem was fixed that caused a system crash (with SRC B131E504) by changing the initialization settings of the I/O control hardware. Note: This fix is not in the EM320_031_031 level listed above; it is included in the EM320_040_031 level.
• A problem was fixed that prevented a system from recovering after SRC B1xxB9xx was logged.
• A problem was fixed that caused a firmware installation to fail with SRC B1813028.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1818A10 to be erroneously logged during a disruptive firmware installation.
• A problem was fixed that, under certain circumstances, caused the buttons on the control (operator) panel to be inoperative.
• A problem was fixed that prevented the system planning tool from deploying a sysplan with certain HEA MCS values.
• A problem was fixed that caused SRC B1813108 to be erroneously logged during system boot. 
• A problem was fixed that, under certain circumstances, caused the InfiniBand adapter to stop responding to InfiniBand requests.
• A problem was fixed that caused the error "MSGVIOSE0300E002-0154 There is insufficient memory available for firmware" to be logged on the HMC.

• On model MMA systems with multiple drawers, a problem was fixed that prevented the pin-hole reset switch on the control (operator) panel from resetting the system.
• On model MMA system with an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) attached, a problem was fixed the prevented the UPS from notifying the operating system that a utility failure or low battery condition had occurred. 
• On systems with at least 3 or more licensed processors and 2 or more unlicensed processors, a problem was fixed that caused the system boot to be slower than normal, or to hang with SRC C700406E.
• On model MMA system with 7314-G30 I/O expansion drawers attached, problems were fixed that caused the wrong FRUs to be called out with SRC B70069ED, and caused the hypervisor to loop if certain invalid cabling configurations are encountered.
• On model MMA systems with a large number of I/O towers attached, a problem was fixed that caused the HMC to go to the incomplete state when an additional tower was added to a loop.

11/19/07

• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused a time-out in a hardware device driver. This time-out must include both SRCs B181B920 and B181D147. Other SRCs may be present including, but not limited to, B1xxB9xx, B1xxE504, and B150D141. Occasionally the system crashes. If B181B920 and B181D147 SRCs are logged, check for any resources that were deconfigured at the time of these errors and reconfigure them using the ASMI menus. No hardware should be replaced. To recover from this error condition, the service processor must be reset by removing, then reapplying, the managed system's power.
• DEFERRED: On multi-drawer model MMA systems, a problem found in testing was fixed which when the L3 cache was disabled, under very unique (and rare) circumstances may result in data being overwritten in the cache and the system to crash. Although the exposure to this issue is very low, and there have been no reported problems from the field, the system impact if this occurred would be high. Product Engineering recommends that you schedule time to install this deferred fix at you earliest convenience.

9/14/07

Additional features and functions:

• Added support for 9406-MMA.

• HIPER: A problem was fixed that caused the system to crash with SRC B170E450.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed that, in rare circumstances, could cause the system to hang due to the improper handling of certain exceptions.
• HIPER: A problem was fixed that prevented the operating system from being notified of certain EPOW conditions that could lead to the system or partition being shut down, with the possible loss of data. These EPOW conditions included the ambient temperature being too high, the loss of utility power (with or without UPS backup), and a user-initiated power off using the white power button or the HMC.
• A problem was fixed that could cause a firmware installation from the HMC to fail with SRC E302F85C on the HMC, and SRC B1813088, B1818A0F, or B1813011 logged in the service processor error log.
• A change was made so that if a failure occurs during a memory-preserving reboot, the system continues to reboot rather than remaining in the termination (powered off) state.
• A problem was fixed that caused EEH (enhanced error handling) errors to be erroneously logged against certain I/O adapters.
• A problem was fixed that prevented "linked" resources that had been guarded out from being reconfigured during the next reboot after a service action on one of the guarded parts.
• A problem was fixed that, after the backplane was replaced in a 7314-G30 I/O drawer, prevented the partition that owned the drawer from seeing those resources. 
• A problem was fixed that caused the serial connection to a partition to be lost. When this occurred, SRCs B181D307, B200E0AA, and/or B200813A were generated by the service processor and the hypervisor.
• A problem was fixed in partition firmware that, in some circumstances, prevented a CD-ROM or tape device from being in the default service mode boot list, even if one was present in the system.
• A problem was fixed that caused the HMC to go to the incomplete state, and SRC B182953C to be logged in the service processor error log every five minutes or so, when the managed system was booted.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to intermittently fail to configure devices attached to the integrated USB port when booting.
• A problem was fixed that might have caused erroneous callouts if a problem was found with certain levels of memory controller chips.
• A problem was fixed that caused the system to call home and reboot instead of allowing the failing part (a memory controller or DIMM) to be deconfigured by PRD (processor runtime diagnostics). 

In addition to the fixes described above, this service pack also contains a fix for a low probability problem and content intended for newly-manufactured systems, or enhancements to system internal interfaces, which is not required for systems already in production use. This content will not be activated on systems that install this service pack concurrently. Even though this content is not required for systems which are already installed and in use, a disruptive installation of this service pack or a re-IPL after installing it will cause this content to become active. It is not necessary to plan a window for re-IPL the system the activate this content.

6/22/07

• Original (GA) level.