Upgrading node firmware

Upgrade your node firmware based on its availability.

Before you begin

Note: You do not have to do a firmware upgrade in the 2.8.0 or 2.8.1 release unless you do a node hardware replacement or any node is at a lower level of firmware version.

Upgrade the IBM Storage Fusion HCI System management software.
Post the upgrade of IBM Storage Fusion HCI System management software, check whether firmware upgrade exists by using any of the following methods:
- Open the Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform web console. In the Overview page, go to Activity > Recent events section, see whether you can see the following message:
```
IBM Fusion firmware upgrade available for nodes. 
```
- Open the IBM Storage Fusion HCI System user interface displays notifications in the following locations:
  - The message is displayed in the Quick start page of IBM Storage Fusion user interface:
```
Firmware upgrade available
An upgrade (version <version_number>) is available for the nodes
```
  - In the bell icon, you can see the following messages for the node:
```
Compute firmware upgrade available
```
  - In the Infrastructure > Nodes, you can see the following message:
```
Version <version_number> firmware upgrade is available
```
- Ensure all the nodes must be in a running state before you start the upgrade.

About this task

The following are the tasks that the administrator must be aware of during the firmware upgrade.
- The admin can schedule firmware updates for a selected set of nodes.
- If a scheduled upgrade is selected, the firmware updates compute nodes one-by-one in each scheduled upgrade. The admin does not have any control over the order of node upgrades.
- If a firmware update fails for a node in each set of nodes, the remaining nodes are not updated until the node is fixed to a ready state. But the admin can retry the upgrade for the failed node.
- If a firmware update fails, a critical event is raised for that node. The critical event can be seen in the Recent Events or Events sections.
- The admin can cancel the upgrade for scheduled nodes only, but not for the node that is already in-progress.
For any node drain issues, see Issues related to IBM Storage Fusion HCI System node drains.
Errors might occur whenever the firmware or BIOS code level on the node does not match with the IBM Storage Fusion HCI System supported previous firmware version. It is always recommended to upgrade to the most recent level.

Note: Do the node firmware upgrade in the specified sequence.

Procedure

Open the IBM Storage Fusion HCI System user interface.
Go to Infrastructure > Nodes.
In the Configured nodes tab, select the nodes that you want to upgrade.
As soon as you select the nodes, the Upgrade button is displayed.
Note: The Cancel button on the nodes page appears whenever you make any node selection from the node list. The functionality of the Cancel button is to deselect all the selections made earlier.
Click Upgrade.
The Upgrade firmware window gets displayed. The IBM Storage Fusion HCI System runs prechecks on the health of the cluster operator, compute health, compute maintenance, DNS resolution, Fusion operator status, machine configuration pool status, and registry accessibility.
If there are blocker issues, do the following steps:
1. To know more about blockers or warnings, click View details link.
  The IBM Storage Fusion HCI System user interface takes you to the Nodes page wherein a Upgrade pre-check report window displays all the Blocking issues and Issues (optional). If the upgrade fails, check the updateStatus in the computefirmware CR.
2. Click on the corresponding BMYxxxxxx code to know more about how to fix the issue.
  If you find error resources in the Resources section of the individual issues, you can click the resource link to know more details about it.
3. Fix all the blocking issues based on the guidance.
  If the upgrade fails with a message Failed to perform power on or off operation on the node in compute-firmware CR status, then you need to restart the node manually from the IBM Storage Fusion HCI System user interface or Openshift > Compute > Bare Metal Hosts. For more information about power operation, see Administering the node.

After the pre-checks complete without any blocker issues, click Upgrade now.

To know more details about the upgrade that is progress, click View details in the notification tab of the Services page. A slide out pane displays the following details:

Upgrade pre-check. As this is complete, a check mark appears and the status shows complete.
Firmware upgrade in progress.

If a firmware update fails for a node in each set of nodes, the remaining nodes are not updated until the node is fixed to a ready state. Though you select multiple nodes, they are upgraded one-by-one.

Before the actual upgrade, the node is automatically moved to maintenance mode. To know more details about the upgrade that is in progress, click View details in the notification tab of the Nodes page.

The following table lists the various node states that provide information about the firmware upgrade.

Firmware State	Description
<version>	Current firmware version
<version> - Upgrade Available	Indicates that an upgrade is available and displays the current firmware version.
<version> - Upgrade scheduled	Indicates that an upgrade is scheduled for the next firmware version.
<version> - Upgrade in progress	Indicates that an upgrade is in progress for the next firmware version.
<version> - Upgrade failed	Indicates that an upgrade failed for the next firmware version.