You can update the Lenovo XClarity Administrator management server to install the latest software.
Before you begin
Review the Read before downloading Lenovo XClarity Administrator Virtual Appliance Update
link on the XClarity Administrator download webpage.
Ensure that all ports and Internet address that XClarity Administrator requires are available before you attempt to update firmware on a managed server. For more information about ports, see Port availability and Firewalls and proxy servers.
For all Electronic Customer Care (ECC) connections that are configured for a proxy, the proxy must be a forwarding proxy and must not terminate the connection. The call home and updates functions of XClarity Administrator use the ECC connections.
When updating from XClarity Administrator v2.7.0 or earlier to XClarity Administrator v2.8.0 or later, managed ThinkSystem SR635 and SR655 servers running firmware level 2.00.0 or later must be forced unmanaged and then managed again after the update is complete.
Updating XClarity Administrator to v2.7.0 takes longer than previous v2.x.x releases due to major upgrade of packages on the virtual machine. It might take 2 – 3 hours to complete the update.
When you update XClarity Administrator, some predefined device drivers and boot files might also be updated. Any customized OS-image profiles that use those files are automatically updated to include the new files. For more information about customized OS-image profiles, see Customizing OS-image profiles.
Management server updates (patches) without payloads that are earlier than the currently installed version are not listed in the table on the Management Server Update page. Patches with payloads that are earlier than the currently installed version are listed in the table with an applied status of "Not applicable" and cannot be applied to the management server.
All repository packs (with or without payloads) are listed in the table on the Management Server Update page. (Note that for XClarity Administrator v2.4.0, only the latest packs are listed for repository packs without payloads.)
For XClarity Administrator v2.4.0 and later, stored credentials are used to authenticate
to ThinkServer and System x M4 servers. When updating to XClarity Administrator v2.4.0, XClarity Administrator creates a stored credential named AutoCreated_User
for each managed ThinkServer or System x M4 server, associates the
stored credential with the specific server, and registers the stored
credential as a new IPMI account on server's baseboard management
controller. If an IPMI account that starts with AutoCreated_User
already exists on the management controller, the existing account
is deleted before the new one is created.
For XClarity Administrator v2.3.0 and later, service requests are no longer routed directly to IBM. When Call Home is enabled, service requests are first routed to the Lenovo Support, and then forwarded to IBM, if appropriate for certain devices.
New DNS names and IP addresses are required to use Call Home to route service requests to Lenovo Support in XClarity Administrator v2.3.0 and later. The old DNS names and IP addresses are no longer required to use Call Home; however, they are needed to retrieve status for open service tickets that were submitted prior to updating to v2.3.0.
For XClarity Administrator v2.2.0 and later, only stored credentials can be used
to authenticate to RackSwtich devices. Manual user accounts are not
supported. For devices that are managed using a manual user account,
the update process changes the authentication for those servers to
use the Universal_User
stored credential.
XClarity Administrator v2.1.0 and later can be installed only on a XClarity Administrator v2.x virtual machine. It cannot be installed on XClarity Administrator v1.x.
You cannot upgrade to XClarity Administrator v2.0.0 from an earlier release. You must install a new XClarity Administrator v2.0.0 virtual appliance, and then either migrate data, settings, and device management from the existing XClarity Administrator v1.x virtual appliance to the v2.0.0 virtual appliance using the migration tool in XClarity Administrator v1.4.1, or manually import data and settings and remanaged your devices in the v2.0.0 virtual appliance. For more information, see Migrating to Lenovo XClarity Administrator v2.0.0.
XClarity Administrator v1.3.0 changed its default minimum Transport Layer Security (TLS) level from TLS 1.0 to TLS 1.2.
Because the TLS setting in XClarity Administrator and managed devices must match, XClarity Administrator generates a warning if there is a mismatch. Updating to XClarity Administrator to v1.3.0 or later does not change the TLS setting in XClarity Administrator, and new Lenovo servers ship with TLS 1.2 enabled. Therefore, when using newly purchased devices, you must either change the TLS setting to TLS 1.0 in XClarity Administrator v1.3.0 and later or change the TLS setting to TLS 1.2 on the existing managed devices.
For more information about TLS settings in XClarity Administrator, see Configuring cryptography settings.
For XClarity Administrator v1.1.1 and earlier, you must manually download and import the management-server updates from XClarity Administrator download webpage.
About this task
Before you can update the XClarity Administrator management server, you must first check for available updates and then download the update package. When you download management-server updates, XClarity Administrator downloads the selected update package from the web, and stores the update packages in the management-server updates repository.
To check for and download management-server updates, XClarity Administrator must be connected to the Internet. If it is not connected to the Internet, you can manually download the management-server updates from the XClarity Administrator download webpage using a web browser to a workstation that has network access to the XClarity Administrator host and then import the updates into the management-server updates repository.
A message is displayed on the page when the repository is more than 50% full. Another message is displayed on the page when the repository is more than 85% full.
Procedure
To update XClarity Administrator, complete the following steps.
What to do next
From this page, you can perform the following actions:View the current version and installed patches for the XClarity Administrator instance by clicking the user-actions menu () on the XClarity Administrator title bar, and then clicking About.
View the update history for all updates that have been applied to the XClarity Administrator management server by clicking the Update History link.
View the update history for a specific update that has been applied to the XClarity Administrator management server by clicking the update-status link in the Applied Status column.
Delete only the image or payload file (.zip, .bin, .uxz, or
.tgz). Information for a selected management-server update by clicking
the Delete only payload files icon (. Metadata about the update, remains so that you can
easily download the update again.
Delete the full update package for a selected management-server
update (including the image or payload file, change history file (.chg),
readme file (.txt), and metadata file (.xml)) by clicking the Delete all update-package files icon ().