Intel® One Boot Flash Update UtilityIntel® One Boot Flash Update Utility User Guide

Intel® One Boot Flash Update Utility

User Guide
Reference for using the Intel® One Boot Flash Update (Intel® OFU) utility.

Rev 1.03
July 2019

Intel Confidential 1
 Intel® One Boot Flash Update Utility User GuideIntel® One Boot Flash Update Utility

Document Revision History

Date Revision Changes
July 2016 1.00 First version
Removed version 13.1, update to version 14.0
November 2016 1.01 Modified Linux installation note
Added new command ‘Clears BIOS customized settings’
Removed utility version
August 2017 1.02
Added new supported platform
July 2019 1.03 Added new supported platform

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 Intel® One Boot Flash Update UtilityIntel® One Boot Flash Update Utility User Guide

Disclaimers
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activation. Learn more at Intel.com, or from the OEM or retailer.
You may not use or facilitate the use of this document in connection with any infringement or other legal analysis concerning Intel
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includes subject matter disclosed herein.
No license (express or implied, by estoppel or otherwise) to any intellectual property rights is granted by this document.
The products described may contain design defects or errors known as errata which may cause the product to deviate from
published specifications. Current characterized errata are available on request.
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for a particular purpose, and non-infringement, as well as any warranty arising from course of performance, course of dealing, or
usage in trade.
Copies of documents which have an order number and are referenced in this document may be obtained by calling 1-800-548-4725
or by visiting www.intel.com/design/literature.htm.
Intel, the Intel logo, Xeon, and Intel Xeon Phi are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries.
*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
Copyright © 2019 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.

Intel Confidential 3
 Intel® One Boot Flash Update Utility User GuideIntel® One Boot Flash Update Utility

Table of Contents
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................. 5
1.1 Supported Firmware Components ............................................................................................................................ 6
1.2 When Updates Take Effect............................................................................................................................................ 7
1.3 Supported Operating Systems .................................................................................................................................... 8
1.4 Support Information ........................................................................................................................................................ 8
2. Installing and Uninstalling ........................................................................................................................................ 9
2.1 Prerequisites before Installing the Intel® OFU ...................................................................................................... 9
2.2 Installing the Intel® OFU .............................................................................................................................................. 10
2.2.1 Windows*........................................................................................................................................................................... 10
2.2.2 Red Hat* Enterprise Linux*or SUSE* Linux* Enterprise Server ................................................................... 11
2.3 Uninstalling the Intel® OFU ........................................................................................................................................ 11
2.3.1 Windows*........................................................................................................................................................................... 11
2.3.2 Linux*................................................................................................................................................................................... 11
3. Running Intel® One Boot Flash Update (Intel® OFU)......................................................................................... 12
4. Updating the Server from a Remote Client......................................................................................................... 14
Appendix A. Error Exit Codes.................................................................................................................................... 15
Appendix B. Glossary ................................................................................................................................................. 16

List of Tables
Table 1. Supported firmware components ....................................................................................................................................... 6
Table 2. When firmware updates take effect ................................................................................................................................... 7
Table 3. Supported operating systems ............................................................................................................................................... 8
Table 4. Command line syntax – options ........................................................................................................................................ 12
Table 5. Error exit codes ........................................................................................................................................................................ 15

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 Intel® One Boot Flash Update UtilityIntel® One Boot Flash Update Utility User Guide

1. Introduction
This User Guide serves as a reference document descripting the features of the Intel® One Boot Flash Update
(Intel® OFU) and providing instruction on how to install and use the utility.
The Intel OFU utility is used to update the BIOS and firmware on Intel® Server Boards while the operating
system is running, which may be launched from a command prompt in either the Windows* or Linux*
operating systems. In addition, this utility can also be executed remotely through a secure network
connection either using a Telnet Client and Terminal Services in Windows or a Telnet Client and Remote Shell
under Linux.
The Intel Server Boards may also be updated using the Intel® Deployment Manager by VERITAS OpForce™.
This utility is shipped with the Intel® Server Board and provides an easy-to-use graphical user interface that
may be used not only to update the BIOS and firmware but to configure key BIOS and firmware settings.
The Intel OFU utility is available in English only.
The Intel OFU utility is only supported on the following Intel Server Boards:
 Intel® Server Board based on Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor family
 Intel® Server Board based on 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor family
 Intel® Server Board based on Intel® Xeon® Platinum 9200 Processor Family

To find the latest Intel OFU update package for an Intel Server Board, refer to
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/ .

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1.1 Supported Firmware Components

The Intel® OFU Utility, with the update package for the specific platform, can be used to update the firmware
components listed in Table 1.
Table 1. Supported firmware components
Component Platforms
System BIOS
 Intel® Server Board based on Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor family
 Intel® Server Board based on 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor family
Intel® Management Engine
 Intel® Server Board based on Intel® Xeon® Platinum 9200 Processor Family
(Intel® ME) firmware
Field Replaceable Unit (FRU)
firmware Components are supported on the following platforms with BMC:
 Intel® Server Board based on Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor family
Sensor Data Record (SDR) firmware
 Intel® Server Board based on 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor family
Baseboard Management Controller  Intel® Server Board based on Intel® Xeon® Platinum 9200 Processor Family
(BMC) firmware
The Component is supported on the following platforms with the Intel® RMM4 installed:
Intel® Remote Management Module  Intel® Server Board based on Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor family
4 (Intel® RMM4) firmware  Intel® Server Board based on 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor family
 Intel® Server Board based on Intel® Xeon® Platinum 9200 Processor Family

Firmware Update Packages (for IDA, Intel OFU, Windows PreEnvironment (Windows PE*), and EFI are
available from http://support.intel.com under each platform.

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1.2 When Updates Take Effect

Starting with Intel® Server Board platforms, the Intel® OFU updates the firmware and BIOS images passively
via the BMC controller or BIOS. The utility hands off the required image files to the BMC Controller or to the
BIOS. After verification of the images (signature verification and/or authenticity verification), the BMC
firmware or BIOS will update the images by itself. When firmware update finishes:
 The firmware update takes take effect immediately.
 The BIOS update takes effect from the next reboot.

The FRU update has only one firmware area, so the update takes effect immediately when the utility
executes. In some cases, the System BIOS, BMC firmware, and SDR updates are programmed into their
respective secondary flash areas and the utility sets an internal flag in the BIOS and BMC to indicate that the
update occurred. After a system reset, the newer version of the System BIOS, BMC, and SDRs are validated
and then activated. Table 2 lists when the specific firmware updates take effect.
Table 2. When firmware updates take effect
Firmware Component When Updates Take Effect
BIOS Immediate
BMC Immediate
SDR Immediate
FRU Immediate
HSC/PSoC Depending on platform; mostly next boot
Intel® Remote Management Module 4
Depending on platform; mostly next boot
(Intel® RMM4)
Intel® ME Firmware Update Depending on platform

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1.3 Supported Operating Systems

The Intel® OFU Utility runs on Windows, Red Hat* Enterprise Linux*, CentOS, and SUSE* Linux* Enterprise
Server operating systems unless otherwise noted in the Intel OFU Release Notes or the Supported Operating
System List for a specific Intel® Server Board listed in .Table 3.
Both IA-32 and Intel® 64 Architecture versions are supported for the operating systems listed in Table 3.
Table 3. Supported operating systems
Platforms Operating Systems

 Windows* Server 2019
 Windows* Server 2016
 Windows* Server 2012 R2
 Intel® Server Board based on Intel® Xeon® Scalable  Windows* 10
Processor family  RHEL* 6.8 (x64)
 Intel® Server Board based on 2nd Generation Intel®  RHEL* 7.3
Xeon® Scalable Processor family  RHEL* 7.5
 Intel® Server Board based on Intel® Xeon® Platinum  RHEL* 7.6
9200 Processor Family  SLES* 11.4 (x64)
 SLES* 12.2
 SLES* 15
 CentOS* 7.3 (x64)
 Debian* 8.10

1.4 Support Information

For more information, visit Intel’s support site at http://support.intel.com/support/.
For an updated support contact list, see http://www.intel.com/support/9089.htm/.

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2. Installing and Uninstalling

Installing and uninstalling the Intel® One Boot Flash Update (Intel® OFU) utility are described in this section.

2.1 Prerequisites before Installing the Intel® OFU

1. Boot to Windows*, Red Hat*, CentOS, or SUSE* operating system.
2. To use the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) driver from Microsoft* or the OpenIPMI
driver for the Intel OFU to update the BIOS/BMC/FRU/SDR, enable the Plug and Play BMC Detection
setting under Server Management in the BIOS setup.
3. Install all the development and optional packages during Red Hat, CentOS, and SUSE operating
system installation.
o In Red Hat operating systems:
 If the utility fails with the following error message:

Error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5: cannot

open shared object file: No such file or directory
Then install libstdc++-xxx.rpm and ncurses-xxx.rpm from the operating system
CD using the following commands:
#rpm -ivh libstdc++-xxx.rpm
#rpm -ivh ncurses-xxx.rpm
Example:
rpm -ivh media\Packages\libstdc++-xxx.rpm
o Where the CD/DVD is mounted to media directory.
 If the utility fails with the following error message:

Error: /lib/ld-linux.so.2: Bad ELF interpreter: No such file or

directory
This indicates the development and optional packages are not installed.
Install the necessary packages.
o In Red Hat Enterprise Linux* 6.4 (or above), CentOS 6.x (or above), UEFI aware Linux*, or other
Linux* operating systems:
 There might be a driver confliction between internal driver and kernel. Enable the
OpenIPMI driver.

If the utility fails and reports the following error messages, start up an OpenIPMI driver and
make sure the /dev/ipmi0 device exists:
 FW interface failed when updating BMC
 terminate called after throwing an instance of
'ResultStatus' Aborted (core dumped)

Example, use the command, #modprobe ipmi_devintf to start the OpenIPMI driver on Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4
 After enabling the OpenIPMI driver, if the utility reports the following errors during the
BMC, FRU and SDR updates there might be a BMC watchdog conflict with OpenIPMI
driver.
 Failed to write SDR file
 SDR auto-update failed
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 Error : Error while parsing the cfg file

If this is the case, the user needs to disable the BMC watch dog, complete the update, and then
re-enable the BMC watch dog after the update is finished.
o In Windows operating system:
 If the Plug and Play BMC Detection setting is disabled, the utility reports an error.
In this case, install the IPMI driver from Intel manually.

Example: Devicesetup.exe -v install imbdrv.inf *IMBDRV from the drivers

folder.
 Updating of BIOS, Intel ME, FRUSDR, and BMC is not supported by the utility if the BMC
Firmware is in Transfer Mode.
 It is recommended that the user complete a direct FRU update in
EFI/Windows PreEnvironment* (Windows PE*) before completing a FRU Resize with a
customized .CFG file.

2.2 Installing the Intel® OFU

If the Intel OFU package was downloaded from the Intel support website, use one of the following
procedures:

2.2.1 Windows*
1. Copy the Intel OFU ZIP file to a local folder.
2. Unzip the .ZIP file to the local folder (example: .\flashupdt)
Go to the flashupdt folder (cd flashupdt).
3. Go to the Drivers\Win folder.
Choose x86 or x64, depending on the operating system.
4. Run install.cmd to install the drivers.
5. Go to the Win_x86 or Win_x64 folder (depending on the operating system) to execute the
flashupdt utility.
6. Now run the flashupdt command with options.

Example: flashupdt -u C:\tmp\flashupdt.cfg.

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2.2.2 Red Hat* Enterprise Linux*or SUSE* Linux* Enterprise Server

2.2.2.1 Regular Installation
1. Copy the Intel OFU .ZIP package (for Red Hat or SUSE) to a local folder.
2. Unzip the package to the local folder (example: ./flashupdt).
Go to the flashupdt folder (cd flashupdt).
3. # chmod 755 install.sh and # chmod 755 flashupdt
4. Install the utility using the command: #./install.sh
5. Go to the RHEL or the SLES directory, depending on the operating system.
6. # chmod 755 chaff2l.sh
7. Unzip flashupdt.zip to find the flashupdt executable for Linux*.
8. Now run the flashupdt command with options.
Example: # ./flashupdt -u /tmp/flashupdt.cfg

2.2.2.2 RPM Installation

1. Copy the flashupdt RPM from the Linux-RPM-package (for Red Hat or SUSE) to a local folder.
2. If another version is installed, uninstall that version first before installing the new version.
3. Install the flasupdt utility by using rpm -ivh flashupdtxxx.rpm.
This installs the utility in /usr/bin/flashupdt/.
4. In RHEL/SLES after installing the RPM, close the terminal from which the RPM is installed and
execute the utility from a new terminal.
Example: # flashupdt -u /tmp/flashupdt.cfg
5. For HTTP and FTP based updates, execute the utility from /usr/bin/flashupdt/ because curl
and chaff2l.sh files are needed for HTTP and FTP based updates.

2.3 Uninstalling the Intel® OFU

2.3.1 Windows*
1. Run uninstall.cmd to uninstall all the drivers.
2. Remove the flashupdt folder structure.

2.3.2 Linux*
 Remove the flashupdt folder structure.
 Or uninstall the RPM using rpm –e flashupdt

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3. Running Intel® One Boot Flash Update (Intel® OFU)

Start Intel® One Boot Flash Update (Intel® OFU) utility by using the flashupdt command from a command
prompt.

Notes:
 To run this utility, set the working directory to the directory where the utility is installed.
The utility depends on certain files that are located in the working directory.
 Intel OFU requires Windows* administrative or Linux* root permissions.
 If the system reports a Segment Fault error message or that the update has failed, verify that the
BIOS, firmware, FRU, and SDR update operates in UEFI mode to isolate hardware issues.
Otherwise, reference the Intel OFU release notes to manually start the OpenIPMI driver or update the
BIOS, firmware, FRU, and SDR one more time to isolate the Intel OFU software issues.

Command Line Syntax

flashupdt [-i] [-u <URL or path>] [-nac] [-h|?]
Description
Updates the System BIOS or firmware on the local server with the System BIOS or firmware specified in the
Intel® OFU configuration file provided with the update package.
Table 4. Command line syntax – options
Option Description

Displays the version information for the currently running System BIOS, BMC, and SDR. If the –i option is specified
[–i]
with the –u option, the utility displays the version information of the update package files.

Performs the System BIOS (including primary BIOS, backup BIOS and NVRAM) and firmware update. The <URL or
[–u] path> parameter specifies the location where the files required for the update are located. The value of <URL or
path> can be a local file system path, an FTP server, or an HTTP server. Examples of using the –u option:

Specifies the current local directory: –u

Specifies an HTTP server. –u http://<IP address or URL>/<path>
Specifies an FTP server: –u ftp://<login:password>@<server name or IP address>/<path>

If –u is used in conjunction with –i, no update is performed. Only the package information is displayed.

This parameter is only supported after Intel Xeon Processor E5-2600 v3/v4 product family.

[-nac] When updating with CFG file, SDR data is, by default, automatically configured and updated in BMC, which do not
need further user interactions. You can disable the default mode and use legacy SDR update process with the
/nac option.

[–h|?] Displays command line help information.

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Option Description

Sets different FRU area as below (for BMC systems)

flashupdt /set “areaname” “frufield” “value”
Where areaname can be “product”, “chassis” or “board” depending on the FRU area to be modified.
The following are the frufield parameters.
Pn – Product name
Pnum – Part number
[-set] Pver – Product version
Snum – Serial number
Mn – Manufacturer name
At – Asset tag
Note: For the chassis area, these fields are not supported:
At
Pn
Pver
Note: For the board area, the pn field is supported.

[-u] fru
<FRU file Performs a direct FRU update of platform with specific FRU file.
name>

-ccs Clears BIOS customized settings.

Syntax Examples:
flashupdt –u ftp://ftp.example.com/UpdatePkg/ServerName/flashupdt.cfg
flashupdt –u
ftp://Kevin:87w09@ftp.example.com/UpdatePkg/ServerName/flashupdt.cfg
For Windows
flashupdt –u flashupdt.cfg
For Linux
flashupdt –u /flashupdt.cfg
flashupdt -set product Pn intelco
flashupdt -set product At xx123456
flashupdt -set chassis Mn intelco

Note: flashupdt.cfg is in the Firmware Update Package for Intel® OFU, Windows PreEnvironment
(Windows PE*), and EFI under http://support.intel.com for each platform.

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4. Updating the Server from a Remote Client

The Intel® One Boot Flash Update (Intel® OFU) utility can be executed remotely via a secure network
connection using a Telnet Client and Terminal Services in Windows*, or using a Telnet Client and Remote
Shell under Linux*. See the operating system documentation for further information on the remote login and
how to execute commands.
Once a remote login is completed the syntax described in section 3 can be used. This process can be scripted
to allow remote updates of multiple servers.

Notes:
 After performing a .cfg file update using the flashupdt utility, complete a power cycle.
Completing continuous updates through the .cfg file without a power cycle or a reboot in between
updates can cause system instability.
 Starting from Intel® Server Board platforms, the flashupdt utility (also known as the Intel OFU)
supports preserving OEM data through CFG-file based update. For details of usage and command
refer to the white paper Supporting OEM Activation 2.x on Intel® Server Boards.
 For a .cfg file update, assume that the HTTP/FTP server does not require a username and a
password.
To access password-protected servers, change the chaff2l.sh or the batch file and include the
username and password.
The default in the .sh file:
/curl $1 -o $2 –s
For password protected server, change the line above as follows:
/curl $1 --user admin:pwd -o $2 –s
Where admin and pswd are the username and password.

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Appendix A. Error Exit Codes

The following error codes in Table 5 can be used when the Intel® One Boot Flash Update (Intel® OFU) utility is
run from a script.

Note: The update configuration file (.CFG) may use the ERRORLEVEL command to override the values for the
Error Exit Codes.

Table 5. Error exit codes

Value Description
0 Successful termination
1 Invalid invocation or unknown command line argument
2 File was not found
3 Unable to read a file
4 A file in the update package is incompatible with the target server
5 A file in the update package is invalid or unsupported
Firmware interface failure (an error occurred when reading or writing to the BMC, setting the update notification, or
6
updating the BMC, FRU, HSC, Intel® Local Control Panel, or SDR)
BIOS interface failure (an error occurred when reading the BIOS ID, setting the update notification, or updating the
7
System BIOS)
8 Insufficient rights (the user must have Administrator or root rights)
9 Instance of another utility already running. If so, wait for the instance to finish and then start again.
10 Unknown error

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Appendix B. Glossary
Term Definition
BIOS Basic Input Output System
Baseboard Management Controller
BMC
The primary microcontroller that controls the operation of the Intel® server management subsystem.
CFG Configuration (file)
EFI Extensible Firmware Interface
FRU Field Replaceable Unit
HSC Hot-Swap Controller
IA Intel® Architecture
ID Identification
Intelligent Platform Management Bus. Name for the architecture, protocol, and implementation of a special bus that
IPMB interconnects the baseboard and chassis electronics and provides a communications media for system platform
management information.
IPMI Intelligent Platform Management Interface
Intel® ME Intel® Management Engine
OEM Original Equipment Manufacturer
RPM Red Hat* Package Manager
SDR Sensor Data Record
SEL System Event Log
URL Universal Resource Locator

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