BMC packages for dell-bmcflash/firmware-tools?

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On 8/10/07, Michael E Brown <Michael_E_Brown at dell.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 10, 2007 at 11:07:01AM -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> > On 8/9/07, Michael E Brown <Michael_E_Brown at dell.com> wrote:
> > > On Thu, Aug 09, 2007 at 10:04:26AM -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> > > > On 8/9/07, Michael_E_Brown at dell.com <Michael_E_Brown at dell.com> wrote:
> > > > > So I was out for a week and I'm woefully behind on email... :(
> > > > >
> > > > > First things first, I promised somebody about three months ago that I would have perc5/sas5 flash utilities in "a couple weeks". Well, I am just putting the finishing touches on this today. I have a few perc5 packages out there today which I published a couple days ago, with the rest (sas5) to come later today. (official announcement to follow)
> > > > >
> > > > > The BMC turned out to be a lot nastier than I thought. I'm working on it, but I'm not going to even attempt an ETA because I know I'll just miss it.
> > > > > --
> > > >
> > > > Even though you are behind... thanks for your help. All I need now are
> > > > the various diagnostic tools in an rpm format.. and I will have a
> > > > bootable centos-5 cdrom with most of the system and pci firmware
> > > > images that you have up and ready for you.
> > >
> > > Sweet. I suppose you saw Matt's blog post and wiki page for using
> > > revisor to do this and that is what you are doing, right?
> > >
> >
> > Actually I started with revisor... got frustrated of trying to get it
> > to work on EL-5 and went for the livecd solution that was listed in
> > the OMSA. It isnt as user friendly as revisor.. but trying to get all
> > the bits working was running up an internal deadline.
>
> Well...
>
> I have a devious idea, if you are up to it. I dont think I have the
> resources to do it myself, but if you want to help, I think we can pull
> it off.
>
> How about a script that can automatically generate a live CD image from
> the current list of update packages and the latest CentOS5 bits?  If you
> could help with that, I could easily run a weekly live-CD build and post
> it on linux.dell.com.
>
> So, a Live CD with:
>     CentOS 5
>     OMSA
>     firmware-tools
>     All of the firmware-tools payload packages
>     anything else we can put in there
>

I think we can fit all of this on without X, but the diag tools seem
to want that to work correctly (according to my PFY who was dealing
with them this week).
I am thinking we will be ending up with a bootable USB key item versus
a Cdrom as it will go over the 660MB

> I will look around and see what I can do about the diagnostics stuff. I
> know a few people to talk to.
>
> I would really like to see something that we can regenerate on a weekly
> basis with the latest sources rather than something that we simply
> generate once and see stagnate.
>

Yes.. I can see that. The main issue I would want is to see it done
with a frozen set of tools to make sure that it didnt end up with a
version of firmware that didnt apply updates :).

> I am willing to run the scripts on an internal machine that I have, and
> host the content.
>
> What do you think?
>
> > > Couple more notes:
> > >
> > > 1) I've added system names for almost all of the bios images. This means
> > > that the rpms should be named something like
> > > "system_bios_PowerEdge_2800...", rather than
> > > "system_bios_ven_0x1028_dev_0x2468...", which should be much more
> > > user-friendly.
> > >
> >
> > Yeah this caused some problems with livecd in the database.. it would
> > say that package XYZ was not there even though it was.. it came down
> > to some issues with conflicts.
>
> Details? I can fix if there is something wrong with my RPMs.
>

Well the first problem I ran into was trying to do a

system_bios_* but it would only load 1 package not all of them.
then I put in the system_bios_<next_name> and I ran into some
conflicts between various systems like
system_bios_ven_<blah><blahdity><blah> and system_bios_ven_PowerEdge
(and some others.) I removed all teh system_bios_ven lines and go a
package that installed items.


At the moment, I can't get the OMSA items installed because I am doing
the development of the cdrom on a system that isnt OMSA (Dell Optiplex
745). Once I can get a 2550 or something available.. I can hack on
that.



> > > 2) firmware-addon-dell 1.4.4 should finish building in about an hour or
> > > so that fixes a typo that kept actual bios flash from occurring.
> > >
> >
> > Ahh.. well I needed to add some documentation to the items to get it
> > more user friendly. I decided to use xfce as the desktop as it cut
> > down the disk space needed. I got all the images I could get livecd to
> > recognize to install in 570 MB image
>
> Hint: use "hardlink" in the %post to hardlink identical files before you
> generate the image. There are *many* duplicate BIOS images that will
> hardlink nicely.

Yeah the default kickstart you fellows put togehter had that.. it cuts
it down pretty well.


> Will definitely like to see that.
>
> --
> Michael
>


-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"