LFlash failure on Linux Red Hat version 5 - IBM System x

Resolving The Problem

Source

RETAIN tip: H006040

Symptom

LFlash fails on Red Hat, version 5.96-2, and higher, for IBM products that support this tool and operating system.

The steps to recreate this symptom is as follows:

1. Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
2. Run LFlash.
3. The user will receive the following error message:
   
   

   *************** Error Log ****************** gzip: stdin: not in gzip format tar: Child returned status 1 tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors line 37: ./linwrap: No such file or directory ********************************************

Affected configurations

The system may be any of the following IBM servers:

• System x3550, type 7978, any model
• System x3650, type 7979, any model
• System x3655, type 7985, any model
• System x3755, type 8877, any model

This tip is not option specific.

The system is configured with at least one of the following:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0, any update

Note: This does not imply that the network operating system will work under all combinations of hardware and software.

Please see the compatibility page for more information:

• IBM ServerProven

The LFlash utility is affected.

Solution

This issue is fixed in Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) release Z2BT05JUS and later, BMC release ZSBT21AUS and later, and Remote Supervisor Adapter (RSA) release ZUEP50AUS and later.

The files are available from the IBM System x Support web site at the following URL:

• IBM Systems Support Site

Workaround

The following is a manual workaround:

1. Run the command awk '/ __ARCHIVESTART__/ print NR + 1; exit 0; ' <lflash.sh> where "< lflash.sh>" is the LFlash executable. Record the numeric value that is returned. That value will be used in the next step.
2. Using the numeric value output from the previous step, run the command tail -n +<num> <lflash.sh> | tar zx -C <targetdir> where "<num>" is the numeric value from step 1 above "<lflash.sh>" is the lFLash executable and < targetdir>" is the directory you want the files extracted to.
3. Run the command ./linwrap -s from the "targetdir" directory specified in step 2 above.

Additional information

With Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, a new version of tail is introduced. For a long time, the "tail +" option has been deprecated, but worked with warnings. Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 5.96-2, and all subsequent versions, finally eliminates the "+" option. This causes an LFlash failure.