Firmware Updates

Metal3 supports updating firmware and retrieving the current firmware versions of the bare metal hosts. This feature can be used to update the system firmware (e.g. BIOS) or BMC firmware.

Updating the firmware components is only supported for Redfish-based drivers (see supported hardware).

HostFirmwareComponents Resources

A HostFirmwareComponents resource can be created manually or automatically for each host that supports firmware components with the same name and in the same namespace as host. BareMetal Operator puts the current components information in the status.components field:

apiVersion: metal3.io/v1alpha1
kind: HostFirmwareComponents
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: "2024-08-08T16:44:34Z"
  generation: 1
  name: worker-0
  namespace: my-cluster
  ownerReferences:
  - apiVersion: metal3.io/v1alpha1
    kind: BareMetalHost
    name: worker-0
    uid: bef07c46-0674-4c65-8613-d29920e207b1
  resourceVersion: "21527"
  uid: 1f9d5b76-5b17-44a1-84f8-7242daafc51d
spec:
  updates: []
status:
  components:
  - component: bios
    currentVersion: 2.3.5
    initialVersion: 2.3.5
  - component: bmc
    currentVersion: 6.10.30.00
    initialVersion: 6.10.30.00
  conditions:
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-08-08T16:44:35Z"
    message: ""
    observedGeneration: 1
    reason: OK
    status: "True"
    type: Valid
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-08-08T16:44:35Z"
    message: ""
    observedGeneration: 1
    reason: OK
    status: "False"
    type: ChangeDetected
  lastUpdated: "2024-08-08T16:44:35Z"

This example was taken from a real hardware and was automatically generated:

• The spec.updates list is empty - no change is requested by the user.

• The status.updates will only be present when spec.updates is not empty and an update was executed.

• The status.components information is populated with the current values detected by Ironic. If an update is executed, the updated information will be available when the host transitions from available state.

• The Valid condition is True, which means that spec.updates are valid, since it was automatically generated. We allow the spec.updates to be an empty list. The condition will be set to False if any value in spec.updates fails validation.

• The ChangeDetected condition is False, which means that the information provided in status matches the information from Ironic and from spec.updates. This condition will be set to True after you modify spec.updates until the change is reflected in status.updates.

Warning: The components in status are only updated on enrollment and provisioning. We do not periodically retrieve firmware versions unless an update is executed.

Note: When manually creating the HostFirmwareComponent resource, the information for status and metadata will be updated during inspecting.

How to change firmware components

To change one or more components for a host, update the corresponding HostFirmwareComponents resource, changing or adding the required components to spec.updates. For example:

apiVersion: metal3.io/v1alpha1
kind: HostFirmwareComponents
metadata:
  name: worker-0
  namespace: my-cluster
  # ...
spec:
  updates:
  - component: <bmc or bios>
    url: https://newfirmwareforcomponent/file
status:
  # ...

The firmware update for the components are only executed when the host is in preparing state. When adding a new BareMetalHost and manually creating the HostFirmwareComponents resource for it, you can specify the updates that must occur for that host before it goes to available.

In case you have a host that is provisioned, and you would like to execute a firmware update, you will need to edit the HostFirmwareComponents CR and then trigger deprovisioning so it can go to preparing to execute the updates.

The newer information about the firmware for the host will only be available in the CRD after the host moves to preparing.

apiVersion: metal3.io/v1alpha1
kind: HostFirmwareComponents
metadata:
  name: worker-0
  namespace: my-cluster
  # ...
spec:
  updates:
  - component: <bmc or bios>
    url: https://newfirmwareforcomponent/file
status:
  # ...
  components:
  - component: bios
    currentVersion: 2.13.3
    initialVersion: 2.13.3
  - component: bmc
    currentVersion: 6.10.30.00
    initialVersion: 6.10.80.00
    lastVersionFlashed: 6.10.30.00
    updatedAt: "2024-08-06T16:54:16Z"
  # ...

A new update is applied when the URL for a component changes, not when a version change is detected.

See also

The functionality described here can be used either on newly provisioned nodes (Day 1 operation, as described here) or on already provisioned nodes (Day 2 operation, utilizing Live Updates / Servicing feature).

The corresponding functionality in Ironic is called Firmware Updates.