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Intelligent NIC Getting Started Guide — NDA Required
NetXen, Inc.
5. Firmware Updates
The -m option may be used to modify the mac address. It takes two arguments - the port
number and the mac address. The port number may be one of 0, 1, 2, or 3.
For a single port XG card, port 0 must be used. The new mac address must be specified
as a hex string, without any spaces or colon (:) between them. Once the mac address is
flashed, the driver must be unloaded and reloaded for the new mac address to take
effect.
e.g. To flash a MAC address of 00:0e:1e:00:1a:04 to port 0, the command line would be:
nxflash -i NX_NIC -m 0 000e1e001a04
(for Windows)
nxflash -i eth[n] -m 000e1e001a04
(for Linux)
2
Update firmware image
The -u option may be used to update the firmware image. The following files must be
present in the directory from where nxflash is executed:
phantom_obj - This is the firmware image.
bootld - This is the boot loader.
These files are supplied as part of the software release. To update the firmware, change
directory where the above files are located, and type the following:
nxflash -i NX_NIC -u
(for Windows)
nxflash -i eth[n] -u
(for Linux)
This will display the firmware version number of the installed image, and the firmware
version number of the image that is being installed, and then display a prompt. If Y is
entered, then the Flash update proceeds. The flash updates takes anywhere from 4
minutes to 8 minutes to complete. This must not be interrupted, otherwise the flash may
get corrupted. Note that
-update
can be substituted for
-u
in the above command.
3
Update boot area for firmware recovery (not required for normal firmware update)
The -init option is used to update the boot area. The boot area contains crucial data that is
used by the hardware to boot the chip. If that gets corrupted, then the card becomes
unusable. In order to update the boot area, the following files must be present in the
current directory:
pegtune.bin
To update the boot area, cd to the directory and type
nxflash -i NX_NIC --init force
(for Windows)
nxflash -i eth[n] --init force
(for Linux)
4
Get information
The -info option may be used to get information about the Flash. e.g.
nxflash -i NX_NIC --info
(for Windows)
nxflash -i eth[n] --info
(for Linux)
The following is an example output when the -info command is executed:
[root@apps03 bin]# nxflash -i eth2 --info