01EL320_046_031
New features and functions
Support for IPv6.
Support for logical volumes bigger than 2 TB was added.
ON systems managed by an HMC, virtual switch support for virtual Ethernet devices was added. This requires the HMC to be running at level HMC V7 R3.3.3.0 with efix MH01102.
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.
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.
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.
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 when the system is first booted. This enhancement allows the console to be selected again, if no selection was made on previous boot, instead of defaulting to the S1 port.
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.
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 on the 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.
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: subq[5][0] destination address is 0!!! Check whether the subq is needed. If it is, allocate MEM.
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: iscsiFailed to LOGIN to target, rc = 1 failed to login. could not open target 0x9034751 :system04 for r/w, aborting... tcpOPEN: iscsi open failed !BA012010 !
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: /usb-scsi@1 U789D.001.DQDGARW-P1-T2-T2-L1 instead of the correct location code, which is /usb-scsi@1 U789D.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 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 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.
System firmware changes that affect certain model E4A and E8A systems:
HIPER On systems managed by an HMC, 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.
On systems 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 using the EnergyScale(TM) technology, a problem was fixed that caused the calculations of power usage to be incorrect.
On systems managed by an HMC, 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.
On systems managed by an HMC, 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.
On systems with 7134-G20 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 7134-G20 drawers attached, a problem was fixed that caused the drawer to fail when performing concurrent maintenance on the associated InfiniBand loop.
On systems with 7134-G20 drawers attached, a problem was fixed that caused the partition to become unresponsive when an InfiniBand cable in a redundantly-cabled loop was disconnected.
System firmware changes that affect systems managed by an HMC
HIPER A problem was fixed in the hypervisor that might cause a partition migration to fail.
01EL320_040_031
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.
01EL320_031_031
New features and functions
Support for the 8203-E4A system was added.
Fixes that affect all model E8A 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, 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.
System firmware changes that affect certain model E8A systems:
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.
On systems running system firmware level EL320_031, a problem was fixed that caused attempts to call home to fail.
On systems running the Active Energy Manager(tm), a problem was fixed that caused the Exhaust Heat Index (EHI), as shown on Active Energy Manager(tm), to read up to 21 degrees lower than the actual exhaust air temperature.
Firmware Release for the Power6 System p 550 Server (8204-E8A)
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 EnergyScale(tm) and Active Energy Manager(tm). For more information on the energy management features now available, please see the EnergyScale(tm) white paper.