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Re: HPE BL465c G7 Upgrade from 5.5 to 6.0 not going well

 
Torsten.
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: HPE BL465c G7 Upgrade from 5.5 to 6.0 not going well

I would try to boot SPP in interactive mode and check if this update is selected.

option 2 would be to run the *.scexe file (need to get the exact name) manually directly in the SPP environment (per CTRL ALT d b x shell).


Hope this helps!
Regards
Torsten.

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bl465c-G7-NC551
Advisor

Re: HPE BL465c G7 Upgrade from 5.5 to 6.0 not going well

Hi Torsten,

VMware tech support are investigating offline, I'll see if they come up with a solution.

I did try the SPP offline automated firmware upgrades as well as the interactive firmware upgrades but the nic card firmware wasn't identified as upgradeable.

This is probably because there is no scexe file for the nic firmware upgrade, not going by what I've looked for anyway.

I am a little puzzled over the firmware versions though - is "CNA (BE2) firmware 4.9.416.2 (frozen)" newer than "Updated CNA (BE2) firmware 4.9.416.15" ?

On the basis 15 is higher numerically than 2 I would assume the former is the later, but on the other hand 2 could be interpreted as a higher revision in some cases (as in .20 vs .15 with a dropped zero suffix) and the 'frozen' would indicate the last/latest release, though the 15 is from a later version date than the .2

It looks like the .15 *.scexe file is "CP024662.scexe", though this isn't listed in the updates in 871790_001_spp-2016.10.0-SPP2016100.2016_1015.191.iso, so I'll download it and see what happens.

bl465c-G7-NC551
Advisor

Re: HPE BL465c G7 Upgrade from 5.5 to 6.0 not going well

OK I tried to apply the .15 firmware via the ILO interface whilst booted into SPP and entered the console window but no luck :-

"smartstart:/mnt/cdrom/hp/swpackages # sh CP024662.scexe --direct

Error locating dependencies(flash.so, libz or libxml12)"

I also tried without the --direct switch and obtained the same result.

The PATH contains "/opt/hp/hp-phoenix/bin:/opt/hp/hp-phoenix/sbin::/opt/hp/hp-phoenix/srv/www/bin:/root/compaq:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin"

Torsten.
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: HPE BL465c G7 Upgrade from 5.5 to 6.0 not going well

During boot you should see a line similar to this. What version is shown?

CNA-FW.png


Hope this helps!
Regards
Torsten.

__________________________________________________
There are only 10 types of people in the world -
those who understand binary, and those who don't.

__________________________________________________
No support by private messages. Please ask the forum!

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bl465c-G7-NC551
Advisor

Re: HPE BL465c G7 Upgrade from 5.5 to 6.0 not going well

Hi Torsten and OP,

I can see why you're an acclaimed contributor, it appears (early days yet) that updating firmware did the trick.

We have no connectivity with these versions of network driver firmware installed: 2.102.517.703 & 2.102.517.7 (sic)

 

The firmware utility that updated the NIC firmware to a working version (4.9.416.15) is available at :

http://h20566.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/readIndex?sp4ts.oid=5033633&swLangOid=8&swEnvOid=54

I hope that helps someone else stuck in the same predicament (OP?).

thanks,

 

neotic
New Member

Re: HPE BL465c G7 Upgrade from 5.5 to 6.0 not going well

This is really annoying, but I've figured out a way to update the hosts

NC551i is running with the BE2-firmware, the latest firmware is 4.9.416.15 (it's in Legacy_OneConnect-Flash-10.7.110.38.iso) and HPE ESXi 6.0 iso's feature an unsupported driver for NC551i


Create an updated ISO with a supported driver (VMW-ESX-6.0.0-elxnet-10.7.110.44-offline_bundle-4014430)
I've used ESXi-customizer powercli script to inject the above driver into the HPE ESXi offline bundle (VMware-ESXi-6.0.0-Update3-5050593-HPE-600.9.7.0.17-Feb2017-depot.zip)
With that .ISO you can add it to VUM (vSphere Update Manager) and deploy it on your hosts


Don't forget to remove a conflicting driver before issuing the remediation
esxcli software vib remove -n net-mst

Installation succeeds!

But after reboot, you need to load the correct driver for NICs as a newer (unsupported) one is installed

# List installed driver
esxcli software vib list | grep elxnet
elxnet 11.1.145.0-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820

# Remove that driver
esxcli software vib remove -n elxnet


# These hosts can't access the shared storage since PowerPath isn't installed so you have to mount a folder through iLO
# (if you can access shared storage just put the driver there and install with esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/<driver.vib> 
# Stop usbarbitrator service so you can access the folder from ESXi
/etc/init.d/usbarbitrator stop

# Attach folder through iLO
Virtual Drives -> Folder

# Load the driver for the folder
vmkload_mod iso9660

# Mount the folder on the ESXi host
/sbin/vsish -e set /vmkModules/iso9660/mount mpx.vmhba35:C0:T0:L0

# Install the driver
esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/mpx.vmhba35:C0:T0:L0/elxnet-10.7.110.44-1OEM.600.0.0.2768847.x86_64.vib

 

 Unmount the folder, reboot and after that the NICs should work! 

bl465c-G7-NC551
Advisor

Re: HPE BL465c G7 Upgrade from 5.5 to 6.0 not going well

Hi neotic,

we are experiencing occasional loss of network connectivity for the upgraded Gen 7's ( we didn't use your method as we'd already found our own method )

can you please confirm whether you have stability of the ESXi hosts upgraded using your method ?

 

thanks,

bl465c-G7-NC551
Advisor

Re: HPE BL465c G7 Upgrade from 5.5 to 6.0 not going well

I downrevved the ESXi nic driver from 10.7.220.6 to 10.7..110.44 and used the nic driver firmware version 4.9.416.15 and this now works reliably