Field Notice: FN - 70065 - RAID Battery Failure on Content Security ESA, WSA, and SMA 80-Series Hardware - BIOS/Firmware Upgrade Recommended

Notice

THIS FIELD NOTICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS AND DOES NOT IMPLY ANY KIND OF GUARANTEE OR WARRANTY, INCLUDING THE WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY. YOUR USE OF THE INFORMATION ON THE FIELD NOTICE OR MATERIALS LINKED FROM THE FIELD NOTICE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. CISCO RESERVES THE RIGHT TO CHANGE OR UPDATE THIS FIELD NOTICE AT ANY TIME.

Revision History

Revision	Publish Date	Comments
1.0	25-Oct-17	Initial Release
2.0	13-Nov-17	Added request for customer to perform upgrade via COM port. Corrected FN Contact details.
3.0	12-Apr-18	Changes made to the Upgrade Process text

Products Affected

Affected Product ID	Comments
WSA-S380-K9
ESA-C380-K9
WSA-S680-K9
SMA-M680-K9
SMA-M380-K9
ESA-C680-K9
SMA-M680-10G-LF-K9
SMA-M680-1G-LF-K9
SMA-M680-10G-K9
SMA-M680-1G-K9
WSA-S680-10G-LF-K9
WSA-S680-10G-K9
WSA-S680-1G-K9
WSA-S680-1G-LF-K9
ESA-C680-10G-LF-K9
ESA-C680-1G-LF-K9
ESA-C680-1G-K9
ESA-C680-10G-K9

Defect Information

Defect ID	Headline
CSCuv57517	ESA x80 platforms, battery alert(s) when charging
CSCuv57526	WSA X80 platforms battery alert when charging
CSCuz02495	SMA X80 platforms battery alert when charging

Problem Description

Cisco Content Security 80-Series appliances might report spurious RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) battery alert notifications. The spurious notifications are the result of a firmware/supercapacitor (supercap) compatibility issue which requires a firmware upgrade in order to be resolved.

Background

The Content Security 80-Series hardware has been equipped with a supercap instead of a RAID battery. For a subset of 80-Series hardware, the RAID firmware fails to read its status correctly. As the alert received, because of this incompatibility, is identical to that received upon a true failure to the RAID supercap, a firmware upgrade is needed in order to ensure that the hardware is not truly at fault.

Problem Symptom

This alert notification is received on the Content Security 80-Series hardware:

A RAID-event has occurred:

(0x0008/FATAL) - Battery has failed and cannot support data retention. Please replace the battery
Version: 10.0.0-203
Serial Number: xxxxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
Timestamp: dd mmm yyyy hh:mm:ss -zone

Workaround/Solution

A firmware upgrade is needed in order to resolve this issue. In order to perform the upgrade, contact the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) and provide them with the serial number of the affected appliance(s). Cisco TAC will then make the upgrade available.

In order to find the serial number of the appliance, log into the CLI and enter the version command.

Important: The upgrade of the firmware requires a reboot of the appliance. In order to ensure that a sufficient level of logging details are captured, it is important to perform the upgrade via the serial console port on the appliance. For more details on how to connect to the CLI via the serial console port, refer to How do I connect to my appliance using a serial cable?

Once the upgrade has been made available, log into the CLI of the appliance and enter the upgrade command. Choose x80 Firmware Upgrade and perform the upgrade as illustrated in this example.

Note: The upgrade can take up to 30-60 minutes to complete. In order to monitor the progress, do so via the serial console port.

Note: As the options for upgrade differs between versions of AsyncOS, you might be presented with an additional option to either downloadinstall or download. In that case you must choose downloadinstall.

appliance.domain.com> upgrade

  Would you like to save the current configuration to the configuration
  directory before upgrading? [Y]> n

  Would you like to email the current configuration before upgrading? [N]> n

  Upgrades available.
  1. x80 Super Capacitor Firmware Upgrade
  [1]>

  Performing an upgrade may require a reboot of the system after the upgrade is
  applied. You may log in again after this is done. Do you wish to proceed with
  the upgrade? [Y]>
  upgrade payload extracted
  Found 9271 RAID contoller
  RAID status is       'Optimal'
  RAID cache policy is 'WriteBack ReadAdaptive Cached'
  RAID cache size is   '1024MB'
  RAID super cap is    'Optimal'
  RAID super cap bad   'No'
  RAID firmware is     '23.9.0-0023'
      required version is 23.33.0-0021
      RAID firmware needs upgrade
  RAID TFM firmware is '70-25849-02F'
      required version is LSI-70-25849-04
      RAID TFM firmware needs upgrade
  BMC firmware is      '1.5(1j)'
      required version is 2.0(4c)
      BMC firmware needs upgrade
  BIOS firmware is     'C240M3.1.5.1c.0.STBU'
      required version is C240M3.2.0.4b.0.STBU5
      BIOS firmware needs upgrade
  Configuring Firmware upgrade after reboot
  reboot partition created
  reboot partition configured
  Firmware upgrade after reboot scheduled

  +-------------------------------- WARNING ------------------------------------+
  | New BIOS, BMC and RAID firmwares are required to be updated to fix          |
  | incorect battery/super cap failures. This appliance will reboot, then       |
  | install the new firmwares. It is important that you do not power-cycle or   |
  | interrupt the appliance during this time. If 2 hours has elapsed without    |
  | the machine coming back up, it has run into a problem and you will need     |
  | to do a manual reboot.                                                      |
  |                                                                             |
  | After the upgrade is complete, start the upgrade again to make sure the     |
  | firmwares have been upgraded and the battery/super cap is reported as:      |
  | RAID super cap is 'Optimal'                                                 |
  | RAID super cap bad 'No'                                                     |
  | Performing the upgrade again will not do anything except report the state   |
  | of the RAID, super cap and the versions of the firmware if everything is    |
  | fine. If a problem still persists or the upgrade is not successful please   |
  | contact tac@cisco.com                                                       |
  +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

  Upgrade installation finished.
  Are you sure you want to reboot?
  [N]> y

  System shutting down. Please wait while the system services are stopped...Conne
  ction to 192.168.1.2 closed by remote host.
  Connection to 192.168.1.2 closed.

Important: Should either the RAID TFM firmware or the BMC firmware versions be shown as blank in the CLI output from the upgrade, complete these steps:

1. Shut down the appliance and remove the power cable.
2. Wait 30 minutes.
3. Turn the appliance back on.
4. Repeat the upgrade process as described previously.

Should either the RAID TFM firmware or the BMC firmware versions still be shown as blank, contact the Cisco TAC and provide them with the logging details captured on the serial console port during the upgrade, as this could be an indication of an error.

Validation

After the upgrade is complete, log back into the CLI and enter the upgrade command in order to validate completion as shown in this example:

appliance.domain.com > upgrade
  Would you like to save the current configuration to the configuration directory
  before upgrading? [Y]> n

  Would you like to email the current configuration before upgrading? [N]> n

  Upgrades available.
  1. x80 Super Capacitor Firmware Upgrade
  [1]>

  Performing an upgrade may require a reboot of the system after the upgrade is
  applied. You may log in again after this is done. Do you wish to proceed with
  the upgrade? [Y]> y

  upgrade payload extracted
  Found 9271 RAID contoller
  RAID status is       'Optimal'
  RAID cache policy is 'WriteBack ReadAdaptive Cached'
  RAID cache size is   '1024MB'
  RAID super cap is    'Optimal'
  RAID super cap bad   'No'
  Configuring RAID setings
  RAID firmware is     '23.33.0-0021'
  RAID TFM firmware is 'LSI-70-25849-04' BMC firmware is '2.0(4c)'
  BIOS firmware is     'C240M3.2.0.4b.0.STBU5'
  No firmware needs upgrade
  Upgrade installation finished.

The output you see on the CLI might differ from the examples as your appliance might be on a different firmware version when the upgrade is started.

Important: If the "RAID super cap status" is reported as "Bad" or if the appliance requires a reboot as part of the validation, contact the Cisco TAC and provide them with the logging details captured on the serial console port during the upgrade, as this could be an indication of an error.

Warning: After a successful upgrade, the appliance sends an alert notification email to the administrator with this content at reboot. This alert will be addressed in a future AsyncOS upgrade and can until then be safely ignored.

From: IronPort C380 Alert <alert@appliance.domain.com>

Subject: Warning <Hardware> alert@appliance.domain.com: RAID ALERT:(0x0020/WARN) - Host driver needs to be upgraded...

 

The Warning message is:

A RAID-event has occurred: (0x0020/WARN) - Host driver needs to be upgraded to enable extended LD support

 

Version: 11.0.0-264

Serial Number: xxxxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxx

Timestamp: 17 Oct 2017 16:19:25 +0000

 

To learn more about alerts, please visit our Knowledge Base.  In many cases, you can find further information about this specific alert.  Please click the Knowledge Base link after logging into our Support Portal at:

http://www.cisco.com/cisco/web/support/index.html

 

If you desire further information, please contact your support provider.

To open a support request for this issue, access the IronPort C380 and issue the "supportrequest" command. The command sends an email with diagnostic information directly to Cisco IronPort Customer Support to facilitate a rapid diagnosis of the problem.

 

Thank you.

For More Information

If you require further assistance, or if you have any further questions regarding this field notice, please contact the Cisco Systems Technical Assistance Center (TAC) by one of the following methods:

• Open a service request on Cisco.com
• By email
• By telephone

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