No keyboard input accepted by BL460C BIOS from VSP

[Mr Phil Rigby]

Hi, I'm trying to interrupt the boot process and get into the RBSU on a BL460C from the ILO 2 virtual serial port. I can see the POST messages and see the prompt to hit f9 to get into RBSU but whatever I do I cannot get my F9, or any other key for that matter, to be accepted as input by the blade's BIOS. I hit keys and infuriatingly it just carries on booting as it has done since the last time it was set up by someone else. Please note I'm a visually impaired user and so cannot use the integrated remote console as this is a Java aplet rendering graphics rather than text. My solution for getting round this problem was to use the virtual serial console and this looked promising when I could see the POST messages come up. I just cannot get any keyboard input in. The BIOS over serial port setting is set to auto but I just don't know what else to try to get this working. from all that I've read it should just work but it certainly isn't working at present.

I'd really appreciate any help anyone can give me with this one.

[Oscar A. Perez]

Function key won't work from VSP, because VSP is nothing but a serial connection through iLO that requires a terminal emulation like VT100.  In VSP, you need to use ESC sequences.  To emulate F9, you need to press ESC + 9

See the HP BIOS Serial Console Guide for more details

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00440332/c00440332.pdf

[Mr Phil Rigby]

Hi. Sorry, I should have explained that I understand about key emulation and have tried esc 9 instead of f9. My point is that NO keyboard input of any kind is accepted as nothing is echoed back to me whatever I do. I am using a VT100 emulation via the WRQ Reflections product but this has never been a problem with access to consoles of HP systems via ILO. This is though my first experience of these Proliant blade servers, BL460C in this case, running a BIOS. I had already read the doc that you posted as a link in your reply Oscar but thank you anyway. By the way, this Proliant currently has a Windows boot disk and, after I fail to interrupt the BIOS boot sequence and it starts Windows up, the same virtual serial port connection works fine with the SAC> prompt appearing and I can type SAC commands. Also, with SAC running, I can hit esc+( and that successfully returns me to the HP ILO prompt closing the VSP session. So it suggests to me that it isn't my connectivity that's the issue here. Is it something I'm not doing right in the configuration of the BIOS that prevents input being accepted from  the VSP during the time the BIOS is running? VSP startup says:

</>hpiLO-> power on

</>hpiLO-> vsp

Starting virtual serial port.

Press 'ESC (' to return to the CLI Session.

</>hpiLO-> Virtual Serial Port active: IO=0x03F8 INT=4

 This suggests the connection is ok doesn't it? So why oh why can't I input anything?