Upgrading CMG-DCM units with legacy firmware to Platinum firmware
Platinum is Güralp Systems’ next-generation firmware for EAMs, NAMs and DCMs. Platinum firmware offers a number of advantages for DCM users over the existing DCM firmware and we recommend that all DCM units being redeployed to new installations are upgraded to Platinum.
This page describes the procedure for upgrading a working DCM to Platinum firmware. It is also possible to install Platinum on a DCM with corrupt flash memory – see this page for more details.
The Re-imaging Procedure
This procedure is used to upgrade a DCM to Platinum firmware. It can be used regardless of whether the DCM is connected by Ethernet or by serial port (terminal).
The process involves transferring three files onto the DCM, verifying their integrity (using check-sums) and then executing one of the files, which carries out the remainder of the procedure. Once the script has completed and the unit has re-booted, you should use the upgrade facility, either from the command line or via the web interface, in order to load the latest version of the Platinum firmware. See the section on Firmware in the Platinum manual for more details. If your DCMs do not have internet access, please refer to to discuss a range of other options.
An example script to load the files, check their sums and then perform the upgrade is given below. It should be edited before use to suit your particular configuration. The script assumes that you are using an Ethernet connection with DHCP and can use the wget command on the DCM to transfer the files directly from the Güralp website.
If you are connected via a serial cable, the script below can still be used but the three initial wget invocations should be replaced with a single call to rz. The rz program will receive Z-Modem file transfers from a suitable terminal emulation package, such as Minicom or ExtraPuTTYExtraPuTTY is an extension to Simon Tatham's free (both as in “free speech” and also as in “free beer”) and highly-recommended PuTTY software, an SSH client, telnet client and serial terminal emulator that runs under Windows and Linux. In addition to all the features of PuTTY, ExtraPuTTY provides x-modem, y-modem and z-modem file transfers over serial links. ExtraPuTTY can be downloaded from SourceForge's ExtraPuTTY page. . When running the script, you will be prompted with ready to receive files, at which point you should use your emulator’s Send File command to send all three files at once. If you emulator can only send one file at a time, use three rz calls in the script.
As the procedure resets the device’s configuration, it is necessary to provide new, initial network details for use post-upgrade so that communication is not lost when upgrading a remote device over Ethernet. These are given as command line arguments to the upgrade script, upgrade-to-platinum.sh.
-
If you have DHCP available at the DCM’s location, you can simply specify dhcpas an argument:
sh upgrade-to-platinum.sh dhcpas in the example script.
If you want to set a static IP address, you must specify the argument static followed by the IP address and netmask in CIDR format, where:
- A netmask of 255.255.255.0 (24 bits set) is written as ip_address/24
- A netmask of 255.255.0.0 (16 bits set) is written as ip_address/16
- A netmask of 255.255.254.0 (23 bits set) is written as ip_address/23 etc.
The syntax for using a static address looks like this:
sh upgrade-to-platinum.sh static 192.168.0.2/24Optionally, the address of the default gateway may be provided after the IP address, like this:
sh upgrade-to-platinum.sh static 172.16.0.1/16 172.16.255.254
The required files are:
If you are using Linux, you can verify the integrity of the files after download with the md5sum utility:
File | MD5 sum |
---|---|
CMG-DCM-mk2x.tar.gz | 53ea54b1623523a46829cbf0080f865a |
support.tar.gz | 33a8473b1c9cf6602d4c20380bb6c4b2 |
upgrade-to-platinum.sh | d1382c0b7cbe130fa85010520b7af59c |
The upgrade script can run unsupervised, but you may monitor its progress by connecting a serial cable to the Data Out port at 115200 Baud. The upgrade process typically takes about 15 minutes. When it is complete, the ports will be configured as follows:
- Port A — GCF in at 38400 baud
- Port B — GCF in at 38400 baud
- Data Out — Terminal at 115200 baud
- Network — static or dynamic as chosen at start of upgrade procedure.
Pasteable script
This procedure install a minimal version of the firmware. Once the script has completed and the unit has re-booted, you should use the upgrade facility, either from the command line or via the web interface, in order to load the latest version of the Platinum firmware. (If your DCMs do not have internet access, please contact to discuss a range of other options.
Due to a bug in the third-party file-system driver used in earlier Platinum versions, the upgrade should be run twice. If, when attempting the second upgrade, you see the error:
enter the command
and try again.
You will see a lot of error messages like
These can all be safely ignored. When the command prompt returns, restart the unit by typing
If you have been using a web browser to communication with your DCM, you may need to clear its cache before the new web interface will display properly. Refer to your browser’s documentation for details.
See the section on Firmware in the Platinum manual for more details.
For more information, first contact your local distributor or email .