About the HostFirmwareComponents resource

You can use the HostFirmwareComponents resource to view and update Basic Input/Output System (BIOS), baseboard management controller (BMC), and network interface controller (NIC) firmware versions for bare-metal hosts.

To update NIC host firmware components, the server must support Redfish and must permit you to use Redfish to update NIC firmware. You can use Metal3 to update NIC host firmware components for the Intel Ethernet 800 Series (ice driver) and the NVIDIA Mellanox ConnectX-6 (CX6) and ConnectX-7 (CX7) (mlx_5 driver). The updates are validated on Dell hardware. The following list outlines important considerations before you update the NICs:

  • If you have more than one network adapter with the same type of NIC, for example, Intel Ethernet 800 Series, when you update one NIC the update might be applied to multiple NICs. Redfish identifies all components that can benefit from the update and then applies the image to all these components.

  • You cannot necessarily update a listed network adapter. A machine might use Redfish to display their NIC and firmware information, but prevent you from updating the adapter through Redfish. For more information about checking if you can update a network adapter, see "Identifying the NICs HostFirmwareComponents resources you can update".

The HostFirmwareComponents resource contains two sections:

  1. The HostFirmwareComponents spec

  2. The HostFirmwareComponents status

HostFirmwareComponents spec

The spec section of the HostFirmwareComponents resource defines the desired state of the BIOS and BMC versions of the host, and the NIC firmware components of the host if the information is available by using Redfish.

Table 10. HostFirmwareComponents spec
Parameters Description 
updates:
  component:
  url:

The updates configuration setting contains the components to update. The fields are:

  • component: The name of the component. The valid settings are bios, bmc, or nic:<ID>.

  • url: The URL to the component’s firmware specification and version.
HostFirmwareComponents status

The status section of the HostFirmwareComponents resource returns the current status of the BIOS and BMC versions of the host, and the NIC firmware components of the host if the information is available by using Redfish.

Table 11. HostFirmwareComponents status
Parameters Description 
components:
  component:
  initialVersion:
  currentVersion:
  lastVersionFlashed:
  updatedAt:

The components section contains the status of the components. The fields are:

  • component: The name of the firmware component. It returns bios, bmc, nic:<ID1>, or nic:<ID2>.

  • initialVersion: The initial firmware version of the component. Ironic retrieves this information when creating the BareMetalHost resource. You cannot change it.

  • currentVersion: The current firmware version of the component. Initially, the value matches the initialVersion value until Ironic updates the firmware on the bare-metal host.

  • lastVersionFlashed: The last firmware version of the component flashed on the bare-metal host. This field returns null until Ironic updates the firmware.

  • updatedAt: The timestamp when Ironic updated the bare-metal host’s firmware.

 
updates:
  component:
  url:

The updates configuration setting contains the updated components. The fields are:

  • component: The name of the component.

  • url: The URL to the component’s firmware specification and version.

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