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Using a remote repository for firmware updates

By default, Lenovo XClarity Administrator uses a local (internal) repository for storing firmware updates. You can free up disk space that is available to the XClarity Administrator local repository by using a mounted remote share over SSH File System (SSHFS) as a remote repository. You can then use firmware update files directly from the remote repository to maintain firmware compliance on your devices.

Before you begin

Only firmware updates can be stored on the remote share. Windows device drivers and XClarity Administrator updates can be stored only in the local updates repository.

Ensure that SFTP service on port 22 is open on the remote-share server. The baseboard management controllers must have access to this port.

The remote share is used as an SFTP server when it is used as a firmware repository. Ensure that you do not disable SFTP when updating the SSHD configuration.

About this task

When you change the location of the firmware updates repository, you can choose to copy all firmware update from the original repository to the new repository.

Firmware update files in the original repository are not automatically cleaned up after switching locations.

If XClarity Administrator has read-write permissions on the remote repository, the behavior is the same as using the local repository. However, if XClarity Administrator has read-only permissions, you cannot refresh the catalog, or download or import updates to the repository.

The same remote repository can be shared by multiple XClarity Administrator instances; however, if one XClarity Administrator instance changes the repository, the other XClarity Administrator instances are not notified automatically. You must refresh the repository to get the latest details. To refresh the repository, click All Actions > Refresh Repository from the Firmware Updates: Repository page.

Note
Take care when deleting firmware updates and UXSPs if the firmware-updates repository is located on a remote share that by multiple XClarity Administrator instances.

Procedure

To use a remote firmware-updates repository, complete the following steps.

  1. Add a remote share to XClarity Administrator (see Managing remote shares).
  2. From the XClarity Administrator menu bar, click Provisioning > Firmware Updates: Repository. The Firmware Updates Repository page is displayed.
  3. Click All Actions > Swap Repository Location to display the Swap Repository Location dialog.
  4. Select the remote share that you just created from the Repository Location drop down list.
  5. Optionally select Clean up current repository to delete firmware-update files from the current repository location.
  6. Optionally select Copy update packages from current repository the new repository to copy firmware-update files to the new repository location before switching the repository location.

    By default, firmware-update files that exist in the new location are not copied over (are skipped). You can optionally choose to overwrite any existing files or overwrite only existing file with a different size or modification date from the Overwrite Rules drop-down list.

  7. Click OK.

    A job is created to copy firmware update packages to the new repository. You can monitor the job progress by clicking Monitoring > Jobs from the XClarity Administrator menu bar.