Preconfigure iLo firmware update

[Aaron.S]

Hello,

I'm trying to put together a scripted installation for numerous OSes, and one of the requirements is that I update iLo's firmware prior to any OS being installed on each Blade. I havn't the faintest how I would configure / implement this.

Is there a command line execution or batch file that could be scripted or a remote push of the firmware?

Any help iPrintable version

s most appreciated.

-Aaron

[Michael Garner_1]

Aaron,
If you download the Firmware Maintenance CD, you can use the HPSUM utility to remotely update the iLO firmware. It is located in the \compaq\swpackages directory. Run HPSUM, select a remote installation and enter the IP address (and when prompted, the credentials) for the target iLO. Please be sure to use Firmware CD 8.30 or later to have this ability. The link to the latest Firmware CD is at:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=3546421&prodNameId=3687290&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-73c82be98b5f4eb3ac4b72c2e3

Regards,
Michael

[Aaron.S]

Thank you Michael,

I know that HPSUM, can be initiated on the command line using startc.exe. If there a particular formating I could use to initialize the iLo firmware update on it's own to the target system?

I'm trying to re-build a dozen Altiris OS deployments, as the previous versions seemed to have been missing their ntldr... kind of important. Haha.

I'm hoping I can identify the remote PC based on it's DNS name, and in turn, use a variable in my script to ensure it always points to the system to which the job has been issued?

Answers to any of the above are much appreciated, I know I started to ramble a bit.

Thank you for your time and help,


-Aaron

[Michael Garner_1]

Aaron,
You can use the /target: for setupc. If you want to do multiple targets on the console by scripting it, you must use HPSUM directly. Just pass multiple /target IP_Address|DNS Name and HPSUM will take care of going to multiple targets. Underneath, setupc just calls HPSUM anyway. To script multiple iLOs, just do the following:

hpsum /s /target target1 /target target2 /target target3

You must use the /s to get HPSUM to run in silent mode.

Regards,
Michael

[Aaron.S]

So in running that, it will realize/ignore the fact that there is no opperating system on which to install drivers, and will solely concern it's self with updating all firmware components?

[Michael Garner_1]

That is correct. HPSUM would communicate with the NIC port on the iLO directly without a need to actually communicate with the target server itself. The IP address you pass must be the iLO NIC port's IP address to get this feature to work. This feature was added to the Firmware CD 8.30 and HPSUM 3.4.0 and later.

[lightxx]

sorry to bring up this thread from the past, but i've downloaded the latest Firmware Maintenance CD (8.50), and whatever i try HPSUM won't detect ILO 2s, only first gen ILOs, and gives me a "not compliant" error when i try to update an ILO 2.
also, when i try to update HPSUM via FTP it crashes at 99% with a fatal error. tried that on 3 different servers now (2k8 x64, 2k3 x64, 2k3 x32) with the same result.

any ideas?

thanks,
Tom

[Michael Garner_1]

Thomas,
A bad catalog that HPSUM uses was published late Monday and will cause HPSUM to fail if pulling updates from the web at 99% as you have stated. An updated catalog was built and is in the process of being released. It should be available in the next 12-18 hours depending on how long it takes to propagate across all the HP servers.

I'll need more information about the type of server you are seeing the iLo2 error on and more information about where you see the "non-compliant" message.

Regards,
Michael

[lightxx]

Michael, thank you very much for your quick reply.

i tried to update various ILO-2s (all of them being version 1.70) on a number of different servers (mostly DL380 G5s & BL460s), and on every server i tried HPSUM suggested that the latest version was 1.90 (this is true for ILO1), but refused to apply the update (sure enough, as it should apply the ILO-2 1.77 update).

thanks,
Tom

[lightxx]

just to clear things up, i was running HPSUM on a DL380 G4, but tried to update ILO-2 remotely with different /target: (i also tried supplying different hostnames / IPs in the GUI), and always ended up with 1.90 as the latest available firmware and the not compliant or not compatible (i'm not in the office now) message ...

[Michael Garner_1]

Thomas,
The issue with HPSUM failing at 99% should now be fixed.

On the other issue, the DL380 G4 you reference had an iLO1 in it and not an iLO2. Based on that, you should have only seen versions 1.93 or 1.94 available depending on which Firmware CD you used. If you manually attempt to force the iLO2 firmware on these servers, you will get a non-compliant/not-compatible message as you state. This is working as it should. I just tried an update to the iLo2 in a DL380G5 I have here in my lab with version 1.77 and HPSUM 3.5.0 correctly picked out the iLO2 firmware component and flashed it with no problems.

Regards,
Michael

[lightxx]

Michael, thanks again for your answer.

what i'm trying to do is to batch - update 50++ servers (all of them being either DL380 G5s or BL460cs) from ILO 2 1.70 to 1.77.

i'm not trying to force my DL380 G4 (this is the machine where HPSUM is installed and run from) to update to ILO 2. this is impossible, except if you managed to swap the management board.

if i start hpsum with providing a /target:[ip of an ILO2 management board], i end up with HPSUM telling me that 1.90 was the latest version and that this version was not supported on the target platform.

so, long story short, i want to update a bunch of ILO 2s, but i don't want to connect to every single ILO (>50) do to the update job.

i thought by providing a /target: or by providing an IP / hostname of a remote machine HPSUM could remotely update the ILO.

thanks,
Tom

[lightxx]

to further clarify things, please take a look at the attached screenshots :)

http://gallery.t-h.cc/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=38145&g2_serialNumber=1

http://gallery.t-h.cc/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=38150&g2_serialNumber=1

http://gallery.t-h.cc/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=38155&g2_serialNumber=1

[lightxx]

to further clarify things, please take a look at the attached screenshots :)

http://gallery.t-h.cc/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=38145&g2_serialNumber=1

http://gallery.t-h.cc/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=38150&g2_serialNumber=1

http://gallery.t-h.cc/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=38155&g2_serialNumber=1

[Michael Garner_1]

Thomas,
Can you zip up the files in the %TEMP%\hp_sum directory and attach them to this issue. You might have to delete the .exe files and the .bin files to get it under the 1MB limit for the forum post but that is OK (or provide a link to a web server as you did with the pictures). The trace files located there will indicate to me what HPSUM is doing and why it thought the target was an iLO1 instead of an iLO2.

Thanks,
Michael

[lightxx]

here you go:
http://kraxn.t-h.cc/hp_sum.zip

thanks,
Tom

[lightxx]

lol. the trace files include the plain-text ILO passwords... probably someone should have a word with somebody about that...

[Michael Garner_1]

Thomas,
I get an error trying to download the zip file stating it is short 50261 bytes. Can you validate the file for me?

Thanks.

[lightxx]

god how i hate that crappy NitroInspection...
please retry, it should work now ...

thanks,
Tom

[lightxx]

you probably need to flush your browser's cache (at least when using FireFox) before retrying ...

[Michael Garner_1]

Thomas,
I've been through your trace logs and see what you are describing. My recommendation would be to delete the %TEMP%\hp_sum directory on your local HPSUM system to clean up some inconsistencies that I believe could be causing this problem. I'm also attempting to recreate it in our lab, but will have to wait until Tuesday to continue because of a planned power shutdown happening later today that requires me to power everything off for the weekend.

The trace logs show me that we were able to make the initial connection to the iLO to verify the userid and password, but when we went back a second time to issue a command, a connection error was reported.

Thanks for pointing out the problem with the passwords. I've spoken with the responsible engineer and QA folks to ensure this doesn't happen again. I've also had the open passwords removed from our trace logs for the next release of HPSUM.

Regards,
Michael

[lightxx]

Michael, once again thank you for your effort.

" My recommendation would be to delete the %TEMP%\hp_sum directory on your local HPSUM system to clean up some inconsistencies "

funny thing, %TEMP%\hp_sum seems to get automatically deleted once i close HP SUM.

thanks,
Tom

[lightxx]

any updates on this one?

[Michael Garner_1]

Thomas,
Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. We have recreated the issue in our lab and found it is caused if you use a DNS name to connect to the iLO as opposed to using an IP address. If you use an IP address, it will correctly detect the iLO2 and flash the firmware for it. I can't offer you any other workaround right now, but we should have a fix in for this in time for our August release.

Sorry that you had to be the one to find this problem.

Regards,
Michael