Version Control Agent 7.90 reporting incorrect ILO firmware

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

We've got an issue with Version Control Agent, at least v 7.90, I haven't bothered to check older versions since we are upgrading anyway to the latest SSD due to stability issues.
The VCA reports my ILO boards having a firmware version they do not have, the VCA states that they have whichever version they had previously to 1.91, but the boards are upgraded to 1.91, and that is what they say when you login to them.
Furthermore this status gets escalated to SIM of course since the VCA's communicate perfectly with SIM, and our operations department then see lots of servers with what seems like outdated firmware even though it isn't.

Also, SIM refuses to use the 1.91 english version and keeps telling us that 1.91 japanese is the latest, and if deleted from repository downloads it again.

With ILO2 on the other hand SIM keeps telling us that 1.30 is the newest firmware version even though 1.35 is available, but VCRM won't detect or show it even if manually added to repository.
Also the VCA for servers with ILO2 shows that whatever firmware version these had prior to 1.35 are installed, either 1.29 or 1.30, but boards with 1.35 will not show that, they will show 1.29 and status yellow, but ILO2 says 1.35 and upgrade via VCA will fail with status that existing firmware is newer than the one to be applied.

What I cannot figure out is if this is an issue with VCA or VCRM, the firmware images or a combination of them ?

[Ole Thomsen_1]

1.91 japanese is english :-)


Ole Thomsen

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Oh, really.... ?

[Ole Thomsen_1]

Don't just take my word for it...have you tried to push the "japanese" firmware to a server?

In all my servers Version Control Agent statuspage there is a line that says:

Online ROM Flash Component for Windows - HP Integrated Lights-Out (Japanese) 1.91

And I can assure you that my iLO's are in english.

By the way - thanks for your kind gesture concerning the points :-)

Ole Thomsen

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Seems like humour does not come across very well over a forum as usual... ;)

Of course I have tried it, I have about 2000 servers running all kinds of combinations of software, firmware, and all riloe,ilo and ilo2 models you just could find.

Yes the "japanese" version is in english but with added japanese language support, that is quite beside the point.

My point I tried to describe in the original post is that regardless of version, 1.91 eng or japanese, VCA will not show it, it will show an older version number instead. Same goes for ILO2 v. 1.35.

So, to maybe make the description a bit easier, what I'm after is a "green" status in the VCA, and I can't get that as long as VCA does not reognize the 1.91 english or japanese firmwares for ILO, or finds the 1.35 firmware for ILO2.

Thus the points, but thanks for taking the time, it may be I should write my post more easily readable. Quite possibly some things are lost in translation.

[Rancher]

Here is how I get my "green status."
Every Sunday my SIms server downloads any new firmware from HP. On MOnday mornings, I delete cp007400 and cp007828 (the Japanese versions of iLO). Then I rebuild the catalogue and the iLO shows the latest English firmware..

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Clever workaround, although a bit too rough around the corners for my taste, I'd really rather hoped for some more permanent fix from HP :)

Also I really don't see how it would let me get my ILO boards to 1.91 and ILO2 boards to 1.35, since then those won't show up at all ?

But after all, I'd say this is more a bug in the firmware or a display bug, since you can "hide" items by deleting them from the repository, but if the ILO board tells me it runs version 1.91 and the VCA tells me it runs 1.89 there is still a big reliability error in this.
Same goes for ILO2, if the board tells me it runs 1.35 and the VCA on the server tells me the board runs 1.29 I feel there's a discrepancy I do not quite like, regardless of which version SIM tells me is the latest the problem in my opinion lies in the fact that the VCA on the server does not tell me the same about the ILO board as the ILO board itself does.

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

It is starting to look like the old proverb "an image tells a thousand words".

I'll attach a screenshot taken from a randomly chosen machine, the lower left shows the ILO board of the machine with correct info regarding actual version, the upper right shows what the VCA says about same ILO board.

[Rancher]

That is exactly what I am seeing before I do my workaround! This has been a problem since version 7.70, I believe. After the workaround, both pages will show the correct version, 1.91. I have also been hoping HP will correct this, since there have been numerous threads on the issue.

[Michael Kincaid]

Did you run the upgrade through a means other than VCA? If so, have you tried running the same upgrade again through VCA?

The reason I ask is that I think (though I might be wrong about this) that VCA appears to work off the various CPQSYSTEM\cp****.xml files and its own internal history of what's been installed, perhaps in preference to reading the actual firmware version off the card. So if you were to run the upgrade again, it seems it should just do a harmless flash of the same version over the top, and possibly also get VCA back in sync.

[Michael Kincaid]

(I guess I should clarify that my post above is related to the ILO 1.89 vs 1.91 issue; obviously it doesn't resolve the issue with ILO2 1.35.)

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Yes I've tried a few combinations, I've both run the installer directly from the exe-file, and via VCA on different servers.

Both ways install just fine according to the status on ILO, it does not seem to help when checking in VCA.

However I am unsure which version I should actually be trying to install, i.e. should I try to get a green status from the 1.91 version from CP007916.EXE, the english version, second revision if I remember correctly, or should I go for CP007828.EXE, the japanese version with the higher revision number in VCA, thereby getting away from any workarounds like the one above needing to delete files regularly ?

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

By the way, what is more annoying is that the VCRM actually reports that ILO2 firmware version 1.35 (english) is available in the repository, however it does not show up in the VCA.

I also noticed on a recent machine I updated that if I run VCA 7.51 instead of 7.90 it does report the correct version of ILO firmware (1.91, japanese or english does not matter), so I'm suspecting the VCA to be the problem here.

[jfranciskay · Accepted solution]

Go to Start/Settings/Control Panel/HP Management Agents. Verify that the "Remote Insight Information" is under "Active Agents". Looks like this is now set to "Inactive" by default and will cause the behavior you have seen.

Good Luck!

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Great! This looks really promising, you don't happen to know where these settings are stored possibly ? Registry or file, (because I don't feel very keen on having to tell my admins to manually update this on 2000 servers if I can script it some way) ?

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Found it, it's in the registry, but it's in hexadecimal format. I should be able to get me a script to modify this I hope. :)

Thanks for the solution.

[Gregory J. Kotula]

Did you ever locate the registry values that control active/inactive status of the Remote Insight agent? I am struggling with the same VCA issue that you have been dealing with and would like to script out a change rather than manually update the HP Control Panel app on 1000's of servers.

[Silvester2]

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Hewlett-Packard\Version Control\HPRevisionManagement\RI5