Table of Contents
Concepts
All computers have a BIOS. Supermicro has something in addition to a BIOS called the Baseband Management Controller (BMC), also known as IPMI. This extra low overhead operating system allows low level access to the underlying hardware and the ability to do smart things like see the BIOS settings and the screen of the hardware even when the operating system hasn’t booted. You can do everything you would do at the server as if you’re right there. The has a very smart HTML5 web interface and back in the day people used Java to access it too.
In both instances when it comes to a BIOS and IPMI it’s best to always have the latest version.
Updating the BIOS
Steps to determine your Supermicro board version:
sudo dmidecode -s baseboard-product-name
You can see the currently installed BIOS version using this command:
dmidecode -s bios-version
Next to go the correct URL, e.g.:
https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X10SLM-F
Download sum for Linux:
https://www.supermicro.com/en/support/resources/downloadcenter/smsdownload?category=SUM
Make sum executable:
chmod +x sum
Examples of sum use to update two different types of Supermicro motherboards:
./sum -c UpdateBios --file X10SLM1.308 ./sum -c UpdateBios --file X10SL71.310
# poweroff
Now use the IPMI interface to restart the computer.
Supermicro Bios List
X10SLM-F = X10SLM1.308 = version 3.4 as of October 2023
Updating the BMC
Download the BMC on the Supermicro website. For example, for the X10XLM-F, we can find it here:
https://www.supermicro.com/en/support/resources/downloadcenter/firmware/MBD-X10SLM-F/BMC
Save to the file. When you extract it, look for something called Redfishxxxxx.bin.
Access the IPMI via it’s IP address. There is a seperate network card on the Supermicro for this and you can set the IP address to fixed or DHCP in the BIOS menu. The default username and password for IPMI is ‘ADMIN/ADMIN’, all uppercase.
Upload the file and wait.
Always remember that this network card shouldn’t be publically facable and that you need to change the default username and password to something secure.
Issues
I did this in an SSH session and it froze towards the end. Below the bold never showed and I had to reboot. It automatically restored the old version and I had to do it over again:
root@hvX:~# ./sum -c UpdateBios --file X10SLM1.308
Supermicro Update Manager (for UEFI BIOS) 2.13.0 (2023/08/25) (x86_64)
Copyright(C) 2013-2023 Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reserved.
WARNING: BIOS setting will be reset without option --preserve_setting
Reading BIOS flash ..................... (100%)
Writing BIOS flash ..................... (100%)
Verifying BIOS flash ................... (100%)
Checking ME Firmware ...
Putting ME data to BIOS ................ (100%)
Writing ME region in BIOS flash ...
- Update success for /FDT!!
- Updated Recovery Loader to OPRx
- Updated FPT, MFSB, FTPR and MFS
- ME Entire Image done
WARNING:Must power cycle or restart the system for the changes to take effect!
See also
- https://kb.vander.host/operating-systems/how-to-determine-bios-version-bios-date-and-model-product-name-of-a-computer-using-ubuntu/
- https://kb.vander.host/disk-management/how-to-mount-a-usb-disk-on-freebsd/