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Re: c7000 update firmware. Wall of text.

 
akopylov
Occasional Advisor

c7000 update firmware. Wall of text.

Hello there. I apologize in advance for my bad English.

I`m new to HP products and so tired of rtfm. I`ve read c-class installation guide, quick start, oa user guide, then I saw link to HP Smart Update Manager User Guide and HP BladeSystem ProLiant Firmware Management Best Practices. Well, my heart nearly stopped. English is not my native language so its hard for me to overcome these manuals, my head hurts. May be someone will help me with my questions?

1. I`ve heared that Support and Subscription is necessary to get the firmware for HP environment? Is it true? This enclosure was bought few years ago and no one even had initialize it (now I should configure it), but I checked the status of enclosure support and got:
   HPE Hardware Maintenance Onsite Support – is still active (I guess its for engineer consulting?).
   Wty: HP HW Maintenance Onsite Support – is still active (I guess its for replacement of broken parts?).
   Wty: HP Support for Initial Setup – expired.
I guess its enough to get the updates but the subscription will expire soon (in 6 months). What should I do in case of tech support will not be renewed? Look for updates on torrents (lol)?

2. The sequence of flashing:
OA, then blades (iLO,rom, nic, array controller, hba, etc.) and separately interconnect switches (brocade and procurve in my case).
Am I right?

3. Concerning OA flashing:
   a. Will enclosure reboot after AO flashing completes? I think it should not but there is some quote from OA user guide: “If you initiated the firmware update a timer appears while other users receive a dialog box informing them that the enclosure is powering down and rebooting. After the enclosure reboots, you must sign in again”.
   b. Which OA is flashing first? “If two enclosures are attached, the firmware update process flashes the Standby Onboard Administrator first and then flashes the primary Onboard Administrator. If you are unable to connect immediately following a firmware update, wait 30 seconds for the enclosure to become available on the network”. So if I got single enclosure the sequence is active OA -> standby OA, if I got multiple linked enclosures the sequence is standby OA -> active OA. Am I right?
   c. I cant understand in which case I will need “synchronize”? In case of failed flashing of second OA or what? I mean OAs should be flashed one by one so I cant imagine the situation when I will need “synchronize”.

4. Concerning blades firmware update:
   a. When I was working with 86xx IBM chassis I used IBM bomc (bootable media creator) – it’s a tool that gathers updates for specified model of server and makes bootable ISO. Is there any tool like that for HP? If not, then where can I download the update ISO for certain blade?
   b. I`m so confused about the ways of update. Afaik there are 3 ways: 1). Just boot blade from ISO and update 2). “Enclosure Firmware Management” in OA 3.). HP Smart Update Manager. Is it correct?
   c. About SUM – I cant get where does it take updates? Automatically determines blade models and download from hp repository? I saw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78w4Eload2k and it seems that SUM updates just iLO of blades, not the other components.
   d. About “Enclosure Firmware Management” – have read http://bladesystem.helpmax.net/en/configuring-the-hp-bladesystem-c7000-enclosure-and-enclosure-devices/enclosure-settings/enclosure-firmware-management/ and totally confused. What is discovery need for? When power policy is used? In case of scheduled update? Actually if there is another description of Enclosure Firmware Management then give me a link please.

 

5 REPLIES 5
Torsten.
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: c7000 update firmware. Wall of text.

There are 100 different ways to update the firmware.

What kind of blades do you have (model)?

What OS is running?

 

The rule of the thumb regarding update order:

 

1) OS drivers

2) blade firmware

3) OA

4) interconnects.

 

You need to get the current SPP 2015.10 (servicepack for proliant), this has all components you need.

Answer the questions, then we can proceed.


Hope this helps!
Regards
Torsten.

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akopylov
Occasional Advisor

Re: c7000 update firmware. Wall of text.

Hello Torsten. Thanks for your answer.

There are four BL680c G7 blades in my chassis (dual-wide). I have already got SPP 2015.10 from techsupport (few hours ago). There are no OS on these blades. Techsupport engineer told me that boot from SPP iso is the easiest way to update blade firmware, but i want to try some automatic way. However i cant understand the way "Enclosure firmware mangement" works (e.g. what is "discovery" need for and how this method differs from usual interactive boot from SPP iso at all), so I decided to try SUM. I have downloaded SUM iso, run launch_hpsum.bat and was redirected to browser page. Now I`am confused how to add SPP as repository (afaik I need Smart Update Firmware iso, not Service Pack for ProLiant iso) and how to add OA/iLO to SUM? I mean i dont know the difference between:

- nodes (?)

- enclosures (should I paste OA ip here?)

- Servers (should I paste ip of Windows/RHEL/SLES server here? It says in guide that only win/sles/rhel is supported os to update by SUM)

- switches (management IP of interconnect module i guess, but does SUM really can update Brocade FOS for example?)

-vmhosts (vmkernel ip of ESXi i guess (or other hypervisor), so win/sles/rhel not the only OSs that can be updated by SUM?)

- iLO - clear

- Moonshot and VirtualConnect - no idea. Cant understand how VC even works. There are flexfabric adapters in our blades (6 embedded eth/iscsi/fcoe nics) but no flexfabric module.

Torsten.
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: c7000 update firmware. Wall of text.

The SPP has drivers and firmware.

 

For updating the OA you can use HP SUM directly from the SPP (hp\swpackages \hpsum.bat), for updating blades you need to boot from.

 

You can connect the SPP to the front dongle or mount it via ILO or present it via OA and use EFM. In case of EFM you need to copy the ISO directly as one file to an USB stick (try to format with ext2 or extfat) and connect that stick to the active OA. The system will boot the blades from SPP and do automatic mode, check for components to be updated (this is discovery) and update it finally.

 

SPP has no bits for brocade, so you need to handle this the old fashioned way.


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!

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!   
julmisgo
Occasional Advisor

Re: c7000 update firmware. Wall of text.

Hi akopylov,

as said Torsten, there's serveral way to update firmwares on bladesystem environment. but i'm going to focus on the online firmware update as you seems to be more interested in.

Offline firmware update:

this is the easiest way, and you do not need to have an os installed for that. download the latest SPP (hp_sum integrated), create a bootable USB key, connect the SUV cable in the connector in front of the server blade, if needed change the boot order to boot first into USB.

after successfully boot, choose between these 2 options: automatic or interactive mode,

       * automatic mode will go through all steps and update firmware of all component of the server that need firmware update, and automatically restart the server at the end of the install.

      * interactive mode, after invotory of the components, will display them and let proceed with those you've chosen by checking or unchecking. at the end a summary of the installation is displayed, and will prompt you to reboot.

repeat the process for each server.

Online firmware update:

- mount the SPP iso media in you local caputer

- run the : launch_hpsum.bat

- in the opened Welcome to Smart Update Manager browser page, clic the blue arrow on the top left side to expand the content,

- in the deployment type: choose enclosures, and select add enclosure,

- in the Add new enclosure page, enter the IP of the OA, leave default for type of node to add.

- in baseline , expand the drop down menu and choose the availabe option

- in credentials enter the OA credentials  and select Add , and Close. HP SUM start to contact OA, and once connection established, the component inventory will start.

- OA check server component via iLO.

for some component like virtual connect module, hp sum will prompt you to enter VC username and password to allow the firmware update.

once the inventory, all servers with the green symbol are ok to proceed to firmware update, select the server and clic start.

those with red symbol have errors or some kind of issue that you'll need to check.

this procedure may be slow depending of the number of server you have in you chassis and also you bandwidth.

hope this will be informative!!!

 

akopylov
Occasional Advisor

Re: c7000 update firmware. Wall of text.

Hello. I apologize for the long absence.

Thanks for answers.

2  Torsten: only ext format is recognized by OA (at least in my case).

2  julmisgo: i`ve run launch_hpsum.bat but there are no available options in baseline dopdown menu.

 

Update:

Ive tried interactive and automatic mode successfully (boot from ISO on USB stick formatted in ext2). Then I decide to try EFM, but got message. Its strange especially considering that blades have booted successfully from this ISO on this USB stick.

To be clear - the USB is not bootable, there is just ISO file as is on the USB stick.