How to configure BIOS settings on 700 BL460c servers

[chuckk281]

Paul was looking for some help :

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I am doing an installation for 700 BL460c G6 servers. I need to configure the BIOS settings on all of the servers. Does anyone know of a simple way to do this on 700 blade servers? There is no OS on them yet. We will be installing RHEL 5.4 on them later this week.

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We had a number of people reply with advice:

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Andrew answered:

It has been a long time since I used these tools....

Check out the Smart Start Scripting tool Kit - look for "conrep".

http://h18013.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/toolkit/index.html

Then Lee:

RDP Conrep job. Capture the BIOS settings off of one systems and redistribute to all the others.

And finally Cullen:

Based on what I’ve heard in very general terms:

1. Use the SmartStart Scripting Toolkit (http://h18013.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/toolkit/index.html) to create a script that will set your configuration.
2. Create a bootable disk image that will automatically run the SSSTK script you just created.
3. Mount the disk image on each machine, boot it, and allow the machine to shut down when complete using an option like:
   1. PXE boot with RDP
   2. Place the file on an FTP server and script the iLO virtual media to mount the image and boot
   3. Burn the boot image to CD or flash media and connect to each Onboard Administrator.  Use OA features to trigger each blade to connect to the boot image and boot once.

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We hope that helps. Any other suggestions? Let us know how you do it.

[Murali K Sethuraman]

Hi,

I am also looking to solve the same issue. Many blades/rack mount servers are to be automated with the same BIOS settings with OS on them.

I have tried so far, none has given full access to the BIOS settings:

RIBCL - seems similar to HP iLO cmdlets - has only limited capabilities to alter bios settings. Example to set a specific NIC as the pxe bootable was missing

CONREP/BCU - Able to run only where an OS exists

Is there any one who had been able to crack this so far? Thanks in advance.

Thanks

[Jimmy Vance]

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Murali K Sethuraman wrote:

Hi,

I am also looking to solve the same issue. Many blades/rack mount servers are to be automated with the same BIOS settings with OS on them.

I have tried so far, none has given full access to the BIOS settings:

RIBCL - seems similar to HP iLO cmdlets - has only limited capabilities to alter bios settings. Example to set a specific NIC as the pxe bootable was missing

CONREP/BCU - Able to run only where an OS exists

Is there any one who had been able to crack this so far? Thanks in advance.

Thanks

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If your not using something like the Altirus/RDP solution, you will need to roll your own.  For Linux based systems I used to create custom scripting using the HP Scripting Toolkit (previously was called SmartStart Scripting Toolkit)

Basically, PXE boot to the toolkit, run a script that configures the hardware,  BIOS settings, RAID, etc, then a script would launch that started an installation of the OS over the network.

I even had the scripts able to provide system personalization based on serial number

The toolkit is available for both Linux and WIndows