How to remotely change boot priority in Integrity servers?

[rick jones]

telnet/ssh to the MP/iLO. Issue a "co" console command. Reboot system. During the reboot there will be an EFI boot menu displayed. Interrupt the boot process at that stage and you can do whatever you like with the boot order.

Otherwise, I believe you are looking at setboot.

Depending on how old the system is, you may have at the EFI level the "dbprofile" command which can be used to configure assorted profiles for network booting the system.

[Tony Varghese]

Thanks Torsten and Rick.

@Torsten: I have been looking into those manuals, but still can't find out how I can change the boot priority remotely through the MP.

@Rick: I know exactly what you mean, but I need to be able to do the same programmatically as well, which is not possible using the console.

IPMI is another method to do this, but I have to bundle IPMIUtil in my program and it is not compatible with all versions of the MP. My application should be compatible with all versions of HP servers which have an MP.

I don't mind having different methods for different types of servers, since for Proliant servers I'll be using SMASH commands. But for Integrity servers I don't have a programmatical solution.

[Torsten.]

But it is clearly written there ...


http://docs.hp.com/en/AB587-96012/apbs04.html

[Tony Varghese]

@Torsten: The link which you provided does not provide any option for remote operations. If you're suggesting to perform this using the CO console option like Rick had mentioned earlier, it cannot be done programmatically.

[Torsten.]

The first link talks about SMASH too, the second is about the remote console, which is for remote use for sure ...

If you want to change from OS, focus on setboot command.

[rick jones]

If setboot etc doesn't offer enough of what you seek, by all means fire-up the support contract and get an enhancement request submitted.

In the meantime, it would be kludgy in the extreme, but perhaps an "expect" script to access the console?

[Bruce Edge]

While it looks like one can change the boot device subsystem using the following smash CLI commands:

hpiLO-> set /system1/bootconfig1/bootsource1 bootorder=1

status=0
status_tag=COMMAND COMPLETED

bootsource1=BootFmCd bootorder=1
bootsource4=BootFmUSBKey bootorder=2
bootsource3=BootFmDisk bootorder=3
bootsource5=BootFmNetwork bootorder=4
bootsource2=BootFmFloppy bootorder=5

It does not appear that one can select internal vs. external USB devices.

Is this the case?

TIA

-Bruce