FreeNAS Firmware Version does not Match

If you are using an LSI HBA in your FreeNAS system and you’ve updated your installation any time recently, you’ve no doubt run into the error on FreeNAS Firmware Version does not Match – this started early with 9.3 when the warning system checked for the mismatch between the driver that shipped with the OS and the firmware on your HBA. When you see this warning, the driver version is indicated – to determine the firmware version on all of the installed HBAs, you can use the sas2flash utility that is included by default on FreeNAS:

sas2flash -listall

In older versions of FreeNAS 9.3, driver version P16 shipped with the OS – it has since been replaced with P20. The first thing you will need to do is download the firmware from LSI (Avago) – the M1015 – 9211-8I – downloads are available here: http://www.avagotech.com/products/server-storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9211-8i#downloads – download the Package_P20_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows – you really only need the firmware BIN file, but the full package includes the PDF for all of the sas2flash command line arguments.

Once unzipped, you need to put the firmware BIN file somewhere on the FreeNAS server – in the below example, it is located at /tmp/firmware/2118it.bin – I would not recommend saving the file anywhere that is connected via the HBA that is going to be updated. Once the firmware is ready, disconnect all systems from FreeNAS to prevent any stray I/O when the HBA is reset during the flash process. When you are ready, run the following to update the firmware on all available HBAs:

sas2flash -fwall /tmp/firmware/2118it.bin

LSI-sas2flash

Once that is completed, the warning should disappear from the web console – you can also double check the firmware version – the below screenshot shows firmware P20 is installed:

LSI-sas2flash2

At this point I prefer to reboot FreeNAS just to be absolutely sure.

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