Lenovo XClarity (XCC) BMC

This page contains information about Lenovo servers’ XClarity Controller (XCC) BMC. Most Lenovo ThinkSystem servers contain an integrated service processor, XClarity Controller (XCC), which provides advanced service-processor control, monitoring, and alerting functions.

Documentation and software

Service log for Lenovo hardware support

Gather Service Log files for Lenovo hardware support under the XCC GUI page under Quick Actions menu. Press the Export button and the file will be stored in your $HOME/Downloads/ directory.

Then upload the file to the Lenovo Upload page. You must enter the case number (3000xxxx).

Note: Browsers on Linux (Firefox, Chrome) may refuse this web page with a Secure Connection Failed error page. We currently do not have a workaround for this issue.

Lenovo has a Repair status page.

XCC licenses

License keys for the XCC can be accessed in the product page’s Reference Information pane item Feature On Demand Key. There is FoD documentation in the Using the FoD web site. First you must register a login account on the FoD homepage.

In the FoD dashboard you can click on the Retrieve history menu and select search type Search history via machine type serial number. For the Search value you enter the 4-character Machine type followed by the server’s serial number. The license key file can be downloaded or E-mailed.

The license key can be installed in the XCC web-page’s BMC License item or the menu BMC Configuration->License page.

XClarity Essentials OneCLI

Lenovo XClarity Essentials OneCLI is a collection of command line applications that facilitate Lenovo server management by providing functions, such as system configuration, system inventory, firmware and device driver updates.

Download the lnvgy_utl_lxcer_onecli01z-4.2.0_linux_x86-64 RPM file from the download page and install it. This will create a soft-link /usr/bin/onecli to the OneCLI command. There is a OneCLI_User_Guide and you may read the online help:

onecli help

The OneCLI can be used Out-of-band from a management server with arguments for example:

onecli <some command> -N --bmc $IPMI_USER:$IPMI_PASSWORD@<XCC-address>

where the IPMI login is defined by the variables $IPMI_USER:$IPMI_PASSWORD.

Some useful OneCLI commands are:

onecli config show
onecli config show system_prod_data

Power management can be done locally or Out-of-band, see the options:

onecli ospower help

A node Virtual_Reseat power cycling can be done (Out-of-band is recommended :-) with:

onecli ospower acpower

Saving and replicating the system configuration:

onecli config save --file <savetofilename> [--group <groupname>] [--excbackupctl] [<options>] # Save the current settings
onecli config replicate --file <filename> [<options>] # Replicate the settings to ANOTHER system

Use the onecli config restore command only to restore previous settings on the same server. If you made a onecli config save file, make sure to delete the line with IMM.IMMInfo_Name from that file because it will be overwritten by the replicate command. In the onecli config replicate log file you should identify all VPD setting parameters and delete those from the file, for example:

Some settings are failed to set with some reason. The settings and reasons are as following:
SYSTEM_PROD_DATA.SysInfoSerialNum
      Reason:SYSTEM_PROD_DATA.SysInfoSerialNum is skipped since this is VPD setting

The noreplicate parameters may be printed by the command:

onecli config show noreplicate

Some system health commands:

onecli misc syshealth
onecli misc syshealth --device system
onecli misc syshealth --device processor
onecli misc syshealth --device dimm
onecli misc syshealth --device power

Show system configuration parameters, for example:

onecli config show BootOrder.BootOrder

Show/set BMC hostname:

onecli config show IMM.HostName1
onecli config set IMM.HostName1 <BMC-hostname>

Show/set the system’s friendly name (unrelated to DNS names):

onecli config show IMM.IMMInfo_Name
onecli config set IMM.IMMInfo_Name <system-name>

Enable promoting the primary BMC firmware to the backup firmware:

onecli config set IMM.BackupAutoPromote Enabled

Upload system logs to Lenovo

The OneCLI can upload system logs to Lenovo using the getinfor command:

onecli inventory getinfor --ffdc --upload lenovo

The --upload command is described as:

  • If specified with lenovo, the format is: –upload lenovo. The inventory data is uploaded to Lenovo Upload Facility. Users should specify the case number, or specify both machine type and serial number.

Firmware updates

The server’s firmware versions can be displayed by:

onecli update scan -N --bmc $IPMI_USER:$IPMI_PASSWORD@<XCC-address>

This command must be executed Out-of-band because OneCLI refuses to work locally on non-supported OSes (bug discovered August 2024).

Updating a single firmware file on a single server can be performed with OneCLI, but the no working examples have been found in the OneCLI_User_Guide. We have tested this procedure:

  1. Unpack the firmware payload zip file in a dedicated directory (example XCC firmware file lnvgy_fw_xcc_qgx330d-5.10_anyos_comp.zip):

    mkdir XCC
cd XCC
unzip <somewhere>/lnvgy_fw_xcc_qgx330d-5.10_anyos_comp.zip

    A subdirectory payload will contain the firmware file. Change the XCC directory name for other firmwares such as UEFI.

  2. Execute this command:

    onecli update flash --scope individual --dir <somewhere>/XCC --nocompare --includeid lnvgy_fw_xcc_qgx330d-5.10_anyos_comp --output /tmp

Note that the firmware file extension must be omitted, and that output logs will be written to /tmp (useful if the XCC directory is on a remote file server)..

Special notes:

  • When the XCC (BMC) is updated it will be rebooted as part of the firmware update.

  • When the UEFI is updated, the server must be rebooted manually.

  • When updating the NVIDIA/Mellanox network adapters, the firmware update bundle contains separate firmware files for different adapter families. These must be used with the above procedure:

    • NVIDIA ConnectX-6 Lx 10/25GbE LOM Ethernet fam010.

    • Nvidia ConnectX-7 NDR200/HDR QSFP112 2-port PCIe Gen5 x16 InfiniBand Adapter (SharedIO) DWC: fam016. Notice that the server power must be hard cycled for the firmware update to be effective! In the DW612S chassis the nodes can be power cycled by a Reseat operation in the SMM2 web GUI, and it may take 5 minutes before the node can be powered on again.

See also:

XCC CLI access using SSH

One may have XCC CLI access using SSH, however, it’s necessary to specify which of your multiple SSH keys to use:

ssh -i $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub <node-xcc-name>

Once logged into the XCC CLI there are many options, use help to list options.

To display Vital Product Data:

system> help vpd
usage:
 vpd sys  - displays Vital Product Data for the system
 vpd bmc  - displays Vital Product Data for the management controller
 vpd uefi - displays Vital Product Data for system BIOS
 vpd lxpm - displays Vital Product Data for system LXPM
 vpd fw   - displays Vital Product Data for the system firmware
 vpd comp - displays Vital Product Data for the system components
 vpd pcie - displays Vital Product Data for PCIe devices