Scripting HPSUM for unattended updates

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Hi all

I am trying to script the new HPSUM.exe tool (finally a replacement for VCA, yay!), to be able to install updates this way since it looks promising but there's a few shortcomings I've run into and I was looking for any ideas on how to workaround those, if any ?

1. First of all I actually like the setting to be able to download directly from HP, a bit risky it might seem, but saving a load of time locating and manually adding to a local repository all required files for all models, but how to solve this in a non-internet-connected scenario ? Will it be possible to connect to HPSIM 6.x whenever that is released or will it just not work if I've got no FTP ?
Since the HPSUM help mentions nothing but mapped disks which feels kind of backwards (not even UNC) ?

2. Second item is that it seems during my tests that whenever I run the tool manually, with GUI, it scans and installs only what's missing and required, but whenever I try to run it unattended launching the command line version from my central job server, HPSUM will attempt to install all drivers, and very often reinstall the network driver even if updated, thereby cutting me own leg off... :)

3. Additionally to the above, the NIC drivers fails a bit too often to feel robust, most notably on BL465c and Windows 2008 R2, but some others as well, no big deal except this cancels the reboot setting, so the server is left with lots of installed drivers and firmware but does not reboot. Not what I had in mind.

4. And lastly, there are several drivers and updates that HPSUM simply fails to find, I don't have them in mind right now but if required I can note them down as I go along, the reason I wanted to mention it is since we still have the VCA agents installed, which connect to our HPSIM server, where the VCRM unreliable as it may be have several updated items that HPSUM does not find, even when allowing it to connect to HP.com via FTP, which strikes me as odd since I thought that was where HPSIM retrieved its updates as well ?

So, any ideas on any of those are most welcome :)

[Floyd O]

Here is an article on using hpsum with the PSP. http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/rdp/knowledgebase/20000042.html

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Thanks for the link but unfortunately it answers nothing of what I was looking for, since it deals only with how to deploy via HPSIM, which is not what I was looking for, and doesn't answer any of the above anyway, at least not as far as I can see.

[DanScotti]

have you reviewed the firmware cd users guide?

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/c-products/servers/management/smartstart/FWCDUsersGuide8.70.pdf

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Unless you can point me to some specific reference I fail to see exactly how the firmware CD which in my mindset is a tool for _offline_ updates, would apply to my questions on how to script HPSUM to work properly and not hang when performing _online_ updates ?

(Just for reference I am very uninterested in performing offline updates, considering the scale of distribution is a few thousand servers.)

[Michael Leu]

Hi Mikael

I can only confirm 2) and that it sucks.

We need to somehow get Michael Garner (HPSUM Archiect) into this thread.
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/publicProfile.do?userId=CA971318

[Michael Leu]

Also regarding 2) and /express_install see here:
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1355921