I have tried unsuccessfully to update various model Intel SSDs using the latest Data Center Tool (3.0.2) for Linux, and the Firmware Update Tool (2.1.6) ISO.
We have a number of servers running a mixture of S3700, S3710, S3610, S3500, and Intel 320 SSDs. Many of these are attached to LSI MegaRAID adapters, and some are attached to LSI HBAs (running with either IT or IR firmware). So far, I have encountered the following show-stopper bugs:
- DCT hangs indefinitely when trying to scan for drives on "LSI adapters" (presumably MegaRAID), when running with EnableLSIAdapter=true. The log file indicates that it is sending ioctls to the MegaRAID and it apparently does see some drives, but it the command never completes, and in fact blocks IO to the MegaRAID whilst it is hung, until I eventually kill the isdct process with kill -9.
- FUT ISO fails to start X11, and lands back at a Linux console login prompt.
Since our systems are headless Debian 8 servers, we of course do not install a GUI on them, but I was able to eventually get the FUT to recognize and update some Intel 320 SSDs behind an LSI HBA, by doing the following:
- extract the issdfut binary from the FUT ISO and copy to target system
- add i386 multiarch support on server (dpkg --add-architecture i386)
- install libqt4gui (apt-get install libqtgui4:i386)
- ssh to target system with X11 forwarding (ssh -X root@foo.example.com)
- run issdfut tool from within SSH session
This is a pretty hefty amount of work to do on a large number of systems. Since we have to reboot the systems for new firmware to take effect anyway, I have nothing against booting the FUT ISO via IPMI virtual CDROM - if it would only work!
The affected systems are predominantly AMD Opteron 62xx systems, however one is an Intel Xeon system. All are running Debian Linux 8 (Jessie), amd64, with kernels 4.6 - 4.8.
If the officially supported tools don't work, what are the chances of getting hold of the plain firmware blobs, to download with tried and true tools like sg3-utils?
