OEM FRU TECHNICAL WHITE PAPER Capabilities and Use Cases of the OEM FRU Storage Feature on Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers ABSTRACT This white paper describes the capabilities of the OEM FRU storage feature and how OEM customers can use the storage area to their benefit.
TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...........................................................................................................4 AUDIENCE ........................................................................................................................................ 4 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................4 OBJECTIVE .........................................................................
MIGRATION ............................................................................................................................................ 14 UPGRADES............................................................................................................................................. 15 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Every modern component of a computer or electronic equipment, commonly referred to as a Field Replaceable Unit or FRU, contains a memory block that stores the inventory information of that component. This includes the manufacturer’s name, product name, manufacture date, serial numbers and other details that help identify the component. The Intel FRU Information Storage for IPMI specification defines the standard format that devices are expected to conform to within their FRU areas.
Provide steps to build the OEM FRU data structure Provide commands to read and write the OEM FRU onto a server Provide commands to edit the OEM FRU on the fly Provide the recommended factory deployment workflow Discuss additional use cases for leveraging the OEM FRU PREREQUISITES The OEM FRU storage feature is a capability of the Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller or iDRAC service processor and is available on 13G+ servers shipping with an iDRAC firmware level of 2.40.40.
The Dell OEM FRU implementation provides 1024 bytes of storage space. While most of the fields in the information areas below allow variable string lengths, the overall size of the FRU would need to be kept within this 1024 byte limit. The Intel specification provides some guidance in section 6 and 7 regarding the storage organization. COMMON HEADER This header is used to define which sections of the FRU are populated and is the starting point for populating and parsing the information.
Product Name Product Part/Model Number Product Version Product Serial Number Asset Tag FRU File ID Custom Product Info Fields MULTIRECORD AREA MultiRecord Area provides an extension area that can go beyond the standard areas defined in the specification. OEM customers are free to leverage this area if it meets their requirements, but the structure and use cases of this area are out of scope of this document. The FRU tool also does not support generating this content.
; Is Multi-Record Info Area to be populated ; Not implemented in Python tool as of today multirecord = 0 INTERNAL AREA [internal] ; Data entered here will directly go into Internal Use Area data = ; Either/or - not both data and file ; Contents of file mentioned will go into Internal Use Area file = CHASSIS INFO AREA [chassis] ; Hexadecimal values defined in the SMBIOS specification v3.0.
; Custom fields pertaining to the board extra1 = extra2 = extra3 = PRODUCT INFO AREA [product] ; Hexadecimal values defined in table 15-1 of the Intel FRU specification language = 0 ; Product manufacturer name manufacturer = ; Name of product product = ; Product part number part = ; Product version version = ; Product serial number serial = ; Product asset tag asset = ; File that was used during manufacture or field update to load the FRU information field = ; Custom fields pertaining to the product extra1
[Product] ; ipmitool -I lanplus -H %IP% -U root -P password fru edit 17 field p 0 123456789012 0: manufacturer = b'Widgets Inc.' (12) The tool generates the BIN file and displays what fields were added to it, along with the field length. It also displays the IPMItool syntax (due to --cmd) that can be used to edit each field once the BIN file is programmed on a server.
In order to read back the entire OEM FRU content, including data that isn’t printable such as any data in the Internal Area, use the IPMItool fru read command. It creates a file with the same binary structure as was generated by the FRU tool. > ipmitool -I lanplus -H %IP% -U root -P password fru read 17 readback.bin Fru Size Done : 1024 bytes Writing, printing and reading back the OEM FRU can be done on any PowerEdge server by using IPMItool.
As discussed earlier, the OEM FRU area can be used to store generic values such as Manufacturer Name and Part Number, which are fixed and don’t change on a per server basis. Serial Numbers and similar fields, however, need to be unique per system. If the OEM FRU contents for your solution have no server specific content, it might be easiest to create the BIN file and have it included within ID Module.
Relevant serial numbers could be included in the license file 3. Sign the license file with OEM private key and append to the license file. 4. Ensure that the total file size is under 1k. 5. Create an INI file setting common.internal = 1 and internal.file = filename 6. Include definitions for any other FRU areas or fields if required. 7. Generate the BIN file by using the FRU tool. 8. Inject the BIN file into the server by using the IPMItool fru write command. 9.
i. Compare IPMItool fru print contents with license file contents ii. Correlate with sales database to verify the license sold on that server 2. Extract the license file within Internal Area from FRU BIN 3. Update the server specific info within the license file with IPMItool fru print results 4. Sign the license file with the OEM private key and append it to the license file 5. Create a new INI file by using IPMItool fru print results and the new license file created above 6.
UPGRADES If a customer is allowed to upgrade or downgrade their OEM application license, the OEM FRU content would have to be updated. It would be yet another variation of the re-activation scenario, except the IPMItool fru print contents will be for the same server, but it is the license file contents that need to be changed depending on what the customer purchased. CONCLUSION This white paper aims at introducing the OEM FRU feature and how it can be utilized by OEM customers.
