[OmniOS-discuss] Supermicro BIOS updates

[Paul B. Henson]

Sorry for two potentially OT supermicro posts in a row :), I just know 
they are really popular for illumos servers and there's such a wealth of 
knowledge on these mailing lists.

I usually update firmware/BIOS on a fairly regular basis on my servers, 
but supermicro has a fairly scary warning on their download page:

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WARNING!
Please do not download / upgrade the BIOS/Firmware UNLESS your system 
has a BIOS/firmware-related issue. Flashing the wrong BIOS/firmware can 
cause irreparable damage to the system.

In no event shall Supermicro be liable for direct, indirect, special, 
incidental, or consequential damages arising from a BIOS/firmware update.
------

Where it seems they pretty much do not want you to ever update unless 
you know of a specific issue the update will solve. Of course, they also 
don't post changelogs with their bios updates, so it's kind of hard to 
know 8-/. I can't remember the last time I had a box die due to a 
corrupted bios update (most of the ones I've worked with won't even let 
you try to flash the wrong firmware), I was wondering if that's a 
problem with supermicro boards to the point where they actively 
discourage updates?

Their technical support sent me a changelog for the motherboard I'm 
working with upon request (seems like it would be a timesaver for them 
to just post it in the first place), and I think I do want to go ahead 
and update the bios. I haven't had to boot DOS for a bios update in a 
*long* time, my workstations for years have supported just sticking in a 
USB flash drive with the image on it and updating from the bios itself, 
and the servers I've been using supported bios updates via the IPMI web 
interface or CLI. What's the preferred way to generate a bootable DOS 
image with the bios update utility and image on it nowadays? I was 
thinking of just downloading a freeDOS floppy image, loopback mounting 
it to copy on the additional files, and then booting it via the IPMI 
remote media option. Is there an easier way?

Thanks much…