Let me tell you a story,
More than 10 years ago a lot of enterprise organizations invested in HP hardware, better known as ProLiant servers. Generation 5 of those amazing machines are EOL so is their support.The problem is that the time have moved on and technology have moved up. Current versions of Java, .NET, Active X controls on modern browsers operate differently. This prevent the integration and management of these old beasts in current infrastructure.
In given example we were re-using some HP DL360 G5 with pretty good specs as a low end low IO cloud storage bricks. But the problem we met that our console machines could not operate those units via ILO (Instant Lights Out, the HP version of remote over-the-network console). Different servers expressed different problems. The most common was that the arrow keys won’t work. Some of the older servers could not mount remote ISO files as local virtual DVD drives. Here comes the solution we did to make sure that we can 100% operate the 10+ years old Parameter ProLiant servers via ILO2:
First things first, some of ILO’s firmware was version 1.03. The latest and the greatest ever produced is 2.27. So step one is update the ILO’s firmware up to the latest version. Unfortunately, many servers failed to do so in a straight forward way, via the ILO itself. So we reserved to another way. We have downloaded the Firmware update ISO from the HP website. (They have changed the location of Enterprise related software and require to obtain an account in order to access software updates. I will provide the link to download the latest ISO with Firmware Update on this page, but keep in mind, the software is 100% proprietary, controlled by the HP and subject to license agreement)
After you boot the machine with this ISO, let it sit. The system will automatically load up into the update mode, search for hardware and update the firmware, including the ILO2 itself.
We are at the last step, after the server is updated and rebooted, make sure you remove the virtual CD/DVD drive. If you did not, it will try to run the update process again. In your browser, in my case I used latest IE from Microsoft which we had on Windows 2012 R2 server, go to Tools in the menu -> Internet Options -> Security. Choose ‘Custom Level’, find everything related to ActiveX and make sure that all tabs are “enabled” and “allowed”. (Security lately became useless insane. Microsoft thinks that they can prevent intrusion by disabling features they developed themselves. I wish they produced more secured products).
Login to the ILO, click on Remote Console, choose ‘built in Active X’. If this is a first time you use this feature on your PC or terminal server, the browser will ask for your permission to download and enable the ActiveX plugin. This is it. Let me know if you had problems with this plan. Worked for us like a charm!
Link to download firmware ISO from HP Enterprise: http://downloads.hpe.com/pub/softlib2/software1/cd/p1040529012/v71197/firmware-10.10-0.zip
Next article will be about deploying CentOS 7 on the old HP DL 360 G5 utilizing an on-board P400 SAS controller (Linux driver cciss). Click HERE for the article.