I purchased an IBM M1015 to use as an HBA in my server. As part of that, I wanted to flash it with the IT firmware, however, I was getting errors, even when I used the original IBM firmware from their website (my mirror copy):

C:\> megarec -cleanflash 0 M1000FW.ROM

MegaRAID HWR Controller Recovery tool. Version 01.01-004 February 05, 2010
Copyright (c) 2006-2008 LSI Corp.
Supports 1079 controller and its Successors


Erasing Flash Chip (8MB)....
 Completed: 100%
Flashing Image. Please wait...


Currently flashing component = BIOS
Programming Flash....
 Completed: 100%
Verifying the Flashed Data...


Currently flashing component = HIIM
Programming Flash....
 Completed: 100%
Verifying the Flashed Data...


Currently flashing component = APP
Error in downloading the image.
Error code = 64
Failed to flash the image. Please retry recovery

I’d never seen an M1015 before, at least not close up. Closer inspection of the card, however, revealed a code: FRU 46C8927. I know FRU" means “Field Replaceable Unit” i.e. something you can order as a replacement part. So I googled that code, and discovered that this was an IBM M5015, not an M1015. The M5015 cannot be used in IT mode, so I had to send it back.

• get image
• installed to internal 32gb microSD
• steps: https://seiler.it/vmware-esxi-5-5-installation-hp-proliant-microserver-gen8/
• Remember to use the v88 driver: http://homeservershow.com/forums/index.php?/topic/11159-esxi-6-cant-degrade-the-hpvsa-driver-to-v88/?p=116554

# To roll back to hpvsa build 88 (for MicroServer Gen8 compatibility)
esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable true
esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient
esxcli software vib remove -n scsi-hpvsa -f
esxcli software vib install -v http://vibsdepot.hp.com/hpq/nov2014/esxi-550-drv-vibs/hpvsa/scsi-hpvsa-5.5.0-88OEM.550.0.0.1331820.x86_64.vib
esxcli system shutdown reboot -r "Rolled back to scsi-hpvsa build 88"

First things first - you do this at your own risk. I take no responsibility for anything going wrong - and it can go wrong. If you are in doubt - don’t do it. And if it goes wrong - don’t blame me…

1. Make a DOS USB boot stick

   1. download the very useful Rufus from here.

   2. select “Create a bootable disk using FreeDos”:

   3. flash the USB.

2. Download the firwmare files from here: sas2008 (see footnote for original source)
3. Extract the files and place them on the root of the USB stick.
4. Download the latest LSI firmware from the Avago site. You’re looking for Firmware for an SAS 9211-8i Host Bus Adaptor. At the time of writing, this is version P20.
5. Extract the LSI firmware to a folder on your machine.
6. Create a subfolder on the USB called P20
7. From the extracted LSI firmware, copy the following to the P20 folder on the USB:
   1. The 2118it.bin file from <zip>\\firmware\\HBA_9211_8i_IT folder
   2. mptsas2.rom from sasbios_rel folder
   3. sas2flsh.exe from sas2flash_dos_rel folder
8. Look at the back of the card and note down the SAS address - it’s something like 500605B0xxxxxxxx.
9. put the card in the machine, and switch it on.
10. Boot to the USB stick - press F11 during POST and select USB.
11. Flash the firmware:
    1. Type the following:
       megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
megarec -cleanflash 0
    2. Type the following:
       megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
megarec -cleanflash 0
    3. Reboot, again booting from the USB stick
    4. Next, install the P10 or P11 firmware - type the following:
       sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom
sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500605bxxxxxxxxx (x= numbers for SAS address)
    5. Reboot, again booting from the USB stick
    6. Finally, upgrade to the P20 firmware - type the following to change to the folder and execute flash of the new firmware:
       cd p20
sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom
12. Remove the USB stick
13. Reboot.
14. Some people recommend to disable loading the Option ROM. On my machine, loading the option room caused an NMI, so i ignored it, but if you want to do it: Load the Option ROM (press CTRL-C on boot) and set “Boot Support” to “Disabled”

The original instructions for this task are here, with my additions to update to the P20 firmware - I’ve archived them here for my own reference.

This post is the second in my series describing how i migrated from Unraid to Napp-It, and describes how I prepared for migration.

So - preparing for migration…

1. First, i wanted to capture the docker configuration for each of my existing containers. To do this, I forced the container to update, then when unraid presented me with the “success” screen, I captured the docker run command, like this (which captures the RUN command for my CUPS container with Google Print extensions):
   root@localhost:# /usr/local/emhttp/plugins/dynamix.docker.manager/scripts/docker run -d –name=“cups-google-print” –net=“host” –privileged=“true” -e TZ=“UTC” -e HOST_OS=“unRAID” -e “CUPS_USER_ADMIN”=“admin” -e “CUPS_USER_PASSWORD”=“pass” -e “TCP_PORT_631”=“631” -v “/mnt/user/appdata/cups-google-print”:"/config":rw -v /dev:/dev -v /etc/avahi/services:/avahi -v /var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus mnbf9rca/cups-google-print

I have a clean VM running Ubuntu 16.04 on VWare ESXi 6.5. I have a CIFS share mounted at /mnt/appdata with the noperm flag. The share is writeable.

I installed Docker using the instructions here: https://hub.docker.c…mby/embyserver/

docker run -it --rm -v /usr/local/bin:/target \
     -e "APP_USER=robert" \
     -e "APP_CONFIG=/mnt/appdata/emby" \
     emby/embyserver instl

then

During the process of installing VMWare on to my Gen8 Microserver, I had trouble writing data to the internal SD card - in fact, I couldn’t even see it. Looking in the ILO Event Logs I saw this:

Embedded Flash/SD-CARD: Embedded media manager failed initialization.

googling this didn’t get me much - just forum posts with people complaining about it, but then i found this HPE Customer Advisory, which lists out the steps needed to reset the error. Basically: