ROM flash on ESXi 4.1 host

[suzan maxey]

I rebuilt my ESX hosts a couple of months ago as ESXi 4.1 on BL460c G5 and G6 servers. I'm trying to do HP updates on these things for the first time since the reboot and have been unable to carry out the firmware updates.

The first host I'm attempting to update is 75 miles away at our DR site. I tried to do a remote update using Update Manager but it's unable to log into the host.

I tried copying the ROM update scexe to a directory on the host, but, whenever I try to execute it, I'm getting a "permission denied" error despite the fact that I'm logged into troubleshooting mode as root.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

McZ19

[Ali]

Hi Suzan,

Use ROMpaq diskette to update the firmware using ILO virtual media option.

Online update on ESXi host which is scexe (shell script) will not work as in ESXi SH and bash commands are by default disabled.

ESXi does not have service console. however, there is a workaround you can use ASH .scexe or if you know how to extract scexe file, you can use the firmware bin file to directly update the firmware..

hope this helps,

thanks
Aftab

[DerekS_1]

Just use the offline firmware disc (9.20B) and it will update iLO, system ROM, and other firmware on your ESXi blades.

[suzan maxey]

Aftab - Thanks for the suggestion on the ROMpaq diskette and ilo virtual media; I will take a look at that this morning.

Derek - I'd love to use the firmware DVD (and that will be my method when I update my local blades) but the blade in question is 75 miles away. My arms aren't that long . . .

Thanks!

S.

[kris rombauts]

Suzan,

if you download the firmware DVD on a pc/server that is located in the remote location and mount the .ISO image via the Virtual Media on your hosts ilo (the one that runs ESX) then you don't need long arms ;-)
Just reboot the ESX host and it will boot from the DVD image and grab the remote console via iLO and that should do the trick.


HTH

Kris

[suzan maxey]

Kris - I wasn't able to get that to work; as I said above, Update Manager wasn't able to log into the host.

S.

[kris rombauts]

Suzan,

Maybe i am missing something, but you tried to run HP SUM from your location against the remote located blade and that failed, right ?

Is there no other blade or pc/server in the remote location that sits on the same network as the ESX server that needs a update ? That was my idea assuming you have remode desktop kind of access to the pc/server in that remote office.

Sorry if i am missing part of the puzzle here.

Kris

[suzan maxey]

Kris - I ran Update Manager from another server in the same cabinet at our DR site; I couldn't get it to work, unfortunately.

s.

[Ali · Accepted solution]

Hi Suzan,

I have tested this in my setup and it worked like a charm... this is just a FYI...

so usage should be based on your convinience and environment..use whatever is best suited.

another way that I have tested in my environment is CentOS LiveCD to update the firmware on ESXi 4.x environment using Online ROM Flash CPxxxxxx.scexe

unpack firmware file
CPxxxxxx.scexe --unpack=1

Findout the .bin file from the extracted firmware script.

Use ISO Master to inject the .BIN files to the root of the CentOS LiveCD ISO image, and then burn the image to disc
or
or put it in USB drive and mount from within the LiveCD.

Boot the ESXi host to the CentOS LiveCD.

Choose the "Boot (run from CD)" option at the menu.

issue the following commands from the terminal window:

cd /mnt/live
./

reboot the server from the terminal window

Reboot

remove the CentOS cd and verify the updates


Cheers!
Aftab

[suzan maxey]

Aftab - That sounds very promising; I will give that a shot in a little bit. Thank you very much for your very complete procedure!

Suzan

[suzan maxey]

Finally resolved by booting the remote host from a firmware update CD on my local workstation via iLO virtual media. I was never able to get an iso image out at the site to boot successfully.