The HPE resource thread

It's been a long time since I've posted anything new, so I'd like to share some tidbits with you guys.

This thread will be a HPE resource thread. That means links to utilities, repos, drivers, and how-to guides with some of the hardware. I'd rather not do any troubleshooting here, so please open a new thread for that.

Let me begin with some handy links:

Management Component Pack Repo
This repo is a must-have for OMV users. You can install utilities such as AMS that will report to iLO stats from the server, and the iLO hponcfg to re-configure or recover an iLO without access to itself.
It makes managing the server through iLO a lot better and far more informational.

HPE Support Center
Handy site to look for any publicly available software or firmware.

HPE Custom Image for ESXi
Like using ESXi freebies? I do too!
I ABSOLUTELY insist that you use our custom images if you use ESXi. They come with all of our drivers and agents to integrate on your HPE server. A must-have, and won't cost you anything.

HPE ProLiant SPP
This includes firmware update packages and full drivers for all of our servers. This can run with the server offline (boot the ISO with iLO), or with the server online. To do online updates, only Windows Server and RHEL are supported
You do NOT require a maintenance contract for this, but you are required to make an HPE site account and register the serial number of your server to qualify for the download. I'm not sure if this works with out of warranty servers though, sorry. Worth trying anyway.

I'll be writing a little guide for the Microserver Gen8 on how to boot from the ODD port with an SSD without an SD card or USB drive for the boot loader.

So here's how you can make the SSD on the Microserver Gen8 OOD port bootable:

• First, make sure that the Dynamic Smart Array option is turned on. You can enable it in the BIOS/RBSU settings (F9)
• Start up the server, then press F10 during POST.
• After POST, you should get three options to boot. Select "Smart Storage Administrator" (or SSA for short)
• Select the storage controller, should be labeled as "Dynamic Smart Array B120i RAID"
• Click "Configure"
• Click "Create Arrays with RAID 0"
• Select ONLY the drive that contains or that will contain OMV, then click OK and confirm YES. You do not need to create any more arrays/volumes.
• On the list to the right, click on "Set Bootable Logical Drive/Volume"
• Select the new logical drive you just created as the "Primary Boot Logical Drive/Volume", then click OK
• You can exit the program, and restart your server

And that's it! The server can now boot your SSD regardless of where is connected.

For those that already had OMV in the drive and had GRUB elsewhere, you have to install GRUB back into your SSD for this to work.

Although I've been able to add/remove the volume from being an array with RAID 0 and didn't lose any data, I recommend that you at least make a backup in the event something does happen. Is unlikely, but you never know.

Also, make sure that "Hard Disk Drive" is the first one under the boot order. You can change this either with iLO under Virtual Media, or the BIOS/RBSU settings (F9).

Hello everyone!

iLO4 2.70 has been released. Among the bug fixes, this new version has HTML5 support for the KVM console and works with any modern browser. Java or .NET are no longer required.

To update iLO from its own interface, simply open the cp038075.exe with the 7-zip utility and extract the ilo_270.bin file. Then go to "Administration" and "Firmware". You can now upload the .bin file from there, is self-explanatory at this point.

Updating your iLO will not cause any downtime on your server, it can be done live. This iLO4 update applies to all Gen8 and Gen9 servers.

Gen10 servers already had HTML5 console support on iLO5 since version 1.20.