HOW TO: Upgrade Cisco UCS CIMC via CLI

Prerequisites:

1. SSH client. Putty, for example;
2. TFTP server. 3CDaemon, for example;
3. CIMC firmware upgrade file. Please check this blog post for the information how to download CIMC firmware.

Procedure:

1. Upload CIMC firmware upgrade file ‘upd-pkg-c200-m1-cimc.full.1.4.3p.bin‘ to the folder where TFTP server is distributing software from;
2. SSH to CIMC IP address and change management mode to firmware, ‘scope cimc/firmware‘

   ServerName# scope cimc/firmware

3. Download CIMC firmware upgrade file from TFTP server. It will be stored on CIMC as a Backup Version

    ServerName /cimc/firmware # update 10.129.1.184 /upd-pkg-c200-m1-cimc.full.1.4.3p.bin
    Firmware update has started.
    Please check the status using "show detail".

4. The file is 16.4MB in size, please be patient and make sure it has been downloaded  and CIMC is ready to activate new firmware.
   You may need to run ‘show detail‘ command several times until you see ‘Update Stage: NONE‘ and ‘Update Progress: 100‘.

   ServerName /cimc/firmware # show detail
   Firmware Image Information:
       Update Stage: INSTALL
       Update Progress: 88
       Current FW Version: 1.4(2)
       FW Image 1 Version: 1.4(3p)
       FW Image 1 State: BACKUP INACTIVATED
       FW Image 2 Version: 1.4(2)
       FW Image 2 State: RUNNING ACTIVATED
       Boot-loader Version: 1.4(2).16
   
   ServerName /cimc/firmware # show detail
   Firmware Image Information:
       Update Stage: NONE
       Update Progress: 100
       Current FW Version: 1.4(2)
       FW Image 1 Version: 1.4(3p)
       FW Image 1 State: BACKUP INACTIVATED
       FW Image 2 Version: 1.4(2)
       FW Image 2 State: RUNNING ACTIVATED
       Boot-loader Version: 1.4(2).16

5. Activate firmware image 1.

    ServerName /cimc/firmware # activate 1
    This operation will activate firmware 1 and reboot the BMC.
    Continue?[y|N]y

Hope this helps.