Minimum version of BCOM driver needed for IMM - IBM BladeCenter HS22, HS22V

Resolving The Problem

Source

RETAIN tip: H195715

Symptom

The following functions may fail after booting the operating system on a BladeCenter HS22 or HS22V. These services may operate intermittently or may fail consistently:

• Serial over LAN (SoL)
• Concurrent Keyboard, Video and Mouse (CKVM)
• Chassis Internal Network
• Firmware updates from the Advanced Management Module (AMM)
• Intelligent Management Module (IMM) First Failure Data Capture - also known as Blade Service Data
• AMM status shows the management network down for the blade.

Affected configurations

The system may be any of the following IBM servers:

• BladeCenter HS22, Type 1936, any model
• BladeCenter HS22, Type 7870, any model
• BladeCenter HS22V, Type 1949, any model
• BladeCenter HS22V, Type 7871, any model

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

• Microsoft Windows 2003 Server, any Service Pack
• Microsoft Windows 2003 Server for 32-bit Servers, any Service Pack
• Microsoft Windows 2003 Server for 64-bit Servers, any Service Pack
• Microsoft Windows 2003 Server, Datacenter Edition, any Service Pack
• Microsoft Windows 2003 Server, EE x64, any Service Pack
• Microsoft Windows 2003 Server, x64 Edition, any Service Pack
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Datacenter 32-bit, any Service Pack
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Datacenter 64-bit, any Service Pack
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Enterprise 32-bit, any Service Pack
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Enterprise 64-bit, any Service Pack
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Standard 32-bit, any Service Pack
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Standard 64-bit, any Service Pack
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, any Update
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, any Update
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, any Service Pack
• SUSE Linux SLED 10, any Service Pack
• VMware ESX Server 3.5, Update 4
• VMware ESX Server 4.0, any Update
• VMware ESXi 4.0 Embedded, any Update
• VMware ESXi 4.0 Installable, any Update

The system is configured with one or more of the following IBM Options:

• Integrated Management Module (IMM)
• The Broadcom device driver for the Ethernet NIC is affected.
• Ethernet NIC

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: http://www.ibm.com/systems/info/x86servers/serverproven/compat/us/

Solution

Update the Broadcom NetXtreme II driver to one of the following or newer depending on the operating system:

• Microsoft Windows 2003 Broadcom BXND(bxnd52x.sys): 4.6.15
• Microsoft Windows 2008 Broadcom BXND(bxnd60x.sys): 4.6.15
• Microsoft Windows 2003/2008 Broadcom VBD(bxvbdx.sys): 4.6.17
• Linux BNX2: 1.8.2b
• Solaris BNX2: 6.0.2
• VMware 3.5 Update 4: Upgrade to Update 5
• VMware 4.0 BNX2: 1.9.26c.
• VMware 4.0 BNX2: 2.0.7c

The driver is listed as VMware ESX or ESXi 4.0 Driver CD for Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5706, BCM5708, BCM5709, and BCM5716 Ethernet Controllers. The driver can be located at the following URL:

• http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere/4_0#drivers_tools

The Broadcom NetXtreme II driver with the fix has been or will be incorporated natively into the following VMware distributions:

• VMware 4.1

This Broadcom driver will not be incorporated in the VMware 4.0.x release(s).

Additional information

Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) traffic is interrupted when the operating system loads some versions of the Broadcom Ethernet drivers. This causes all functionality that relies on the VLANs to fail. All of the features listed above require VLAN 4095 to be active. The interruption is not cleared until the drivers are unloaded or the blade is rebooted.

Even though cKVM does not work with some releases of the Broadcom Ethernet driver, analog KVM works correctly.

There is no workaround; Any driver previous to the versions listed above is considered unsupported.