8.13 Upgrading Card/Module Firmware Through Consoles’ Serial Ports
When updated firmware is released for a ServSwitch Multi Interface Card, Expansion Card, Hub Module, Management Card, Serial Control Card, or Local-Console Module, you can download the new firmware to all of the affected components in your system through the serial-port connection of a local or secondary console. If a Black Box Technical Support technician asks you to do so, you can access the ServSwitch Multi’s firmware- configuration display by following one of the procedures described below. If, based on the information displayed, the technician determines that you need new firmware for a given component, he or she will tell you how to receive the new firmware from us. Once you’ve done that, you can send that firmware to the Switch components—again, by following one of the listed procedures.
NOTE
Cascaded systems only: In their factory-default state, all non-Hub ServSwitch Multis without Transmit Cards installed in them will have unit address 0. In order for you to be able to tell these Switches apart in the firmware-configuration display, and to download firmware to a Card or Module in the correct Switch, you will need to use the “<CM>CHASSIS=n[Enter]” command, where n is a number from 0 to 254, to assign every non-Hub Switch in your cascade a unique unit address. See the entry for that command in Section 8.15.
Access the ServSwitch Multi’s firmware menus/displays in any of these ways:
•If any of the computers attached to your ServSwitch Multi system through a CPU-Interface Card has an RS-232 serial port and terminal-emulation software:
1.Store the new firmware files on that computer.
2.Attach the serial-port strand of that computer channel’s audio-type Server Cable to that computer’s serial port. (If you’ve been using a standard Server Cable with that channel, either you’ll need to replace it with an audio-type cable or you’ll need to use a different computer.)
3.Select that computer’s channel, in Privacy Mode (see Section 8.10), from your ServSwitch Multi console.
4.Run the terminal-emulation software.
5.Set the software to use the correct COM port and set its serial communication parameters: 1200 to 19,200 (but not 14,400) bps, no parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, and no flow control.
6.Use <CM>ZB[Enter] to access the firmware-configuration menu (see Figure 8-2 at the end of this section).
•If none of the computers attached to your ServSwitch Multi system through a User-Interface Card has both an RS-232 serial port and terminal-emulation software, you’ll need to place a computer that does nearby. Once you do, the question becomes whether or not you have a null-modem cable (such as our product code EYN257H-0006-FF) handy. If you do:
1.Store the new firmware files on the terminal-capable computer.
2.Go to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse that are attached to either (a) a User-Interface Card with On- Screen Display (UICD, our part number KV2550C-R2) or (b) the Local-Console Module of a Base Unit or MX. (This procedure can’t be done from a console attached to a Universal User-Interface Card [UUIC, our product code KV2500C].) If you choose to use a UICD console, run the null-modem cable from the terminal-capable computer’s serial port to the serial-device (not serial-mouse) connector—the one without a yellow band—on your console’s User Cable. If you choose to use a local console, run the null-modem cable from the terminal-capable computer’s serial port to the local console’s “SERIAL PORT” connector on the front panel of the Base Unit or MX.
