BIOS settings change in all servers in a rack

[smanikrajan]

Hi

Please help with utility that can be used to configure BIOS and collect information from BIOS in multiple servers through command line

Have to install HP Rack with 20 DL380 servers.To do OS installation on all these servers through pxe ,we need to collect the MAC address of NICs in all these servers and also need to change the boot order in all the servers.

We need the HP utility to do this from command line in all these servers at one go from the management network.

following tool says it can do it.But in the documentation no where it is mentioned how to do it in multiple hosts

http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/solutions/info-library/index.aspx?cat=hp_scripting_toolkit#.UycFUYW2Pj4

P.S. This thread has been moved from Servers > General to ProLiant Servers (ML,DL,SL). - Hp forum Moderator

[Jimmy Vance · Accepted solution]

There are a few different ways to accomplish what I think you are attempting to do.

My assumption is your management network is where the iLO is plugged in.

iLO can be uses to get/set boot order, power the system on/off, get the MAC addresses along with many other items using "hponcfg". cpqlocfg.exe and "locfg.pl" to send XML formatted commands to iLO.

The HP scripting toolkit you reference contains a set of tools that can be used to configure the server. There are several tools, but the primary tools are "conrep" to read/write system ROM settings, "hponcfg" to read/write iLO settings and "hpssacli" to read/write Smart Array controller settings.

I'm most familiar with using the HP Scripting Toolkit for Linux. Using the toolkit and a PXE server one can fully automate the provisioning of ProLiant rack, tower and blade servers.

You can use iLO XML to gather the MAC addresses of the system, you can also use iLO to set the boot order. I do want to ask why you want to change the boot order. If they are new systems, during boot they should fall through to PXE since the drives out of the box have nothing bootable loaded. Once you load the OS, they would then boot from disk and not restart the PXe installation cycle.

One thing you cannot do over the iLO scripting interface is configure the Smart Array controller.

Here are links to both tool packages I've mentioned along with their documentation.

HP Scripting Toolkit:
Http://www.hp.com/go/toolkit 

Users guides for the toolkit can be found here:
https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docLocale=en_US&docId=c04083436 - v9.60 Windows
https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docLocale=en_US&docId=c04083434 - v9.60 Linux

HPE iLO 4 Scripting and Command Line Guide:
https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docLocale=en_US&docId=c03334058

HPE Lights-Out XML Scripting Sample for Windows:
https://support.hpe.com/connect/s/softwaredetails?language=en_US&softwareId=MTX_2f47d0a5e8534f758723c0d86e

HPE Lights-Out XML PERL Scripting Sample for Linux:
https://support.hpe.com/connect/s/softwaredetails?language=en_US&softwareId=MTX_2b741a93446e4a75890384eba8

(note: the above two packages essentially contain the same content, they both contain the locfg.pl PERL script, for Windows you still need to down load cpqlocfg.exe)

Latest version of cpqlocfg for Windows:
http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/psi/swdDetails/?spf_p.tpst=swdMain&spf_p.prp_swdMain=wsrp-navigationalState%3Didx%253D%257CswItem%253DMTX_f1a792c45e9648069b7dd13f63%257CswEnvOID%253D%257CitemLocale%253D%257CswLang%253D%257Cmode%253D%257Caction%253DdriverDocument&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken

[Moderator edit: Removed the broken links]
The XML file Get_Host_Data.xml is the one I used to get MAC address information. This XML dumps the SMBIOS table, record type 209 lists the NIC information. Set_One_Time_Boot_Order, or Set_Persistent_Boot_Order are the other files you will want to look at

Hope this helps
--jv

[smanikrajan]

Hello Jimmy

Sincere thanks for such a detailed response.I will go through the suggested materials.

Can this toolkit be used to automate ILO IP configuration as well.We would have  a few HP racks coming in ,configuring ILOs in each and every servers in the is rack going to be a tedious effort. Trying for options to automate this as well.If there are any suggestions on this part,it will help as well

[Jimmy Vance]

Yes, using the hponcfg utility you can configure iLO

[smanikrajan]

Based on my analysis ILOs of HP Rack servers were DHCP enabled by default(In Factory).Since there is no DHCP option in our DC we can only configure ILO network settings server by server.Is my understanding correct ot do you have any other suggestion to automate the network configuration of the ILOs of the rack in some other way.

[Jimmy Vance]

If you can't PXE boot into some type of utility, then you are correct, server by server is pretty much the only way

[dvikas]

Hello Jimmy,

The links provided by you are no longer exixtts, some are redirecting to the hp site. Please help me with the docs as i am looking for the solution since long. we have 70 rack servers dl360 and dl380 as well. i want to edit the bios of all the servers in one go from a tool.

Best Regards,

Vikas Reddy

[mobrien118]

4+ years later - I'm looking for the same thing dvikas was. So many dead links on HP support website... Every time I think I've found a post that answers my questions, it refers to a document or page that no longer exists...