Good idea to upgrade IPMI BMC firmware on Supermicro X10SLM?

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cycleback

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I bought a used Supermicro X10SLM motherboard. The IPMI BMC firmware version is 1.10. Is it a good idea or recommended to update the IPMI BMC firmware to the latest version? From what I was reading in the upgrade tool instructions there is no way to downgrade back to the 1.x firmware if there is a problem.
 

kdragon75

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I bought a used Supermicro X10SLM motherboard. The IPMI BMC firmware version is 1.10. Is it a good idea or recommended to update the IPMI BMC firmware to the latest version? From what I was reading in the upgrade tool instructions there is no way to downgrade back to the 1.x firmware if there is a problem.
Odd about not being able to downgrade. I would just go for it considering they usually have security patches. Worst case, you brick the IPMI. The system will be otherwise unaffected.
 

Ericloewe

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Yes, the firmware on the BMC must match the system firmware (the version numbers are different).
 

Ericloewe

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Worst case, you brick the IPMI. The system will be otherwise unaffected.
It's not that simple. The system cannot boot without the BMC. The ME will halt the processor as it is considered a security violation.
 

kdragon75

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Hmm odd. I guess I have more to learn about BMCs. I know I updated my IPMI on my X8 board without changing anything else unless you are referring to the IPMI software and the BMC firmware. If that's the case do they get flashed together with the same file?
 

Ericloewe

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blue_ice

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It's always a good idea to upgrade IPMI firmware, for security reasons, add functionalities as IPKVM/Html5; as long as I know, you can downgrade it to an earlier version in the same "major" revision, meaning if your firmware version is 3.30 you can downgrade it to 3.10 not 2.xx
 

Ericloewe

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I know I updated my IPMI on my X8 board without changing anything else
Think of it more like "it's not tested and may not work, but it won't crash and burn while you do the other one".
 

cycleback

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Yes, the firmware on the BMC must match the system firmware (the version numbers are different).

I already upgraded the motherboard system bios to 3.0a to support the newer Haswell refresh processors. Do you mean the BMC firmware must be upgraded to match the system bios?
 

Ericloewe

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Yes, to whatever the latest version is, to match the system firmware.
 

Spearfoot

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Yes, to whatever the latest version is, to match the system firmware.
This isn't always true... I'm running version 3.27 of the IPMI firmware on my X10SL7-F system -- instead of the newest version 3.45 -- because of problems with the IPMIView software, as spelled out in the thread below. The motherboard BIOS is version 3.0a, i.e., the latest available version, and the system works great.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...est-ipmiview-and-ipmitools.49801/#post-342773
 
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