
Issue 11
© Solarflare Communications 2014
70
Solarflare Server Adapter
User Guide
3.18 Upgrading Adapter Firmware with Sfupdate
• Sfupdate: Command Usage...Page 70
• Sfupdate: Command Line Options...Page 73
• Sfupdate: Examples...Page 74
Sfupdate is a command line utility to manage and upgrade the Solarflare adapter Boot ROM, Phy and
adapter firmware. Embedded within the sfupdate executable are firmware images for various
Solarflare adapters - the exact updates available via sfupdate depend on the adapter.
Configuring the Solarflare Boot ROM Agent on page 344
for more information on the Boot Rom
agent.
Sfupdate: Command Usage
The general usage for sfupdate is as follows (as root):
sfupdate [--adapter=eth<N>] [options]
where:
ethN
is the interface name (ifname) of the Solarflare adapter to be upgraded.
option
is one of the command options listed in
.
The format for the options are:
<option>=<parameter>
Running the command
sfupdate
with no additional parameters will show the current firmware
version for all Solarflare adapters and identifies whether the firmware within sfupdate is more up to
date. To update the firmware for all Solarflare adapters run the command
sfupdate --write
Solarflare recommend the following procedure:
1
Run
sfupdate
to check that the firmware on all adapters is up to date.
2
Run
sfupdate --write
to update the firmware on all adapters.
Sfupdate: Linux MTD Limitations
The driver supplied "inbox" within RedHat and Novell distributions has a limitation on the number
of adapters that sfupdate can support. This limitation is removed from RHEL 6.5 onwards. The
Solarflare supplied driver is no longer subject to this limitation on any distro/kernel.
Linux kernel versions prior to 2.6.20 support up to 16 MTD (flash) devices. Solarflare adapters are
equipped with 6 flash partitions. If more than two adapters are deployed within a system a number
of flash partitions will be inaccessible during upgrade.
The limit was raised to 32 in Linux kernel version 2.6.20 and removed altogether in 2.6.35.
NOTE:
All Applications accelerated with OpenOnload should be terminated before updating the
firmware with sfupdate.