Hi all, I recently picked up my first HP server, a DL389g9. I'm trying to update the bios in preparation for upgrading from V3 to V4 CPUs, but it's turning out to be surprisingly difficult.
I downloaded HP's service pack, which is theoretically bootable from a USB stick, but I haven't managed to make that work -- depending on how I write the .iso to the USB, I either get a "failed to mount root" error when booting, or no option to boot from it at all. And HP's USB stick writing utility doesn't detect my USB sticks at all.
The service pack can also theoretically be used to install the firmware from within the OS, but it seems it requires either Windows or an RPM-based Linux, and at the moment I'm running Ubuntu Server on there. If it's the fastest or only way, I could install something else temporarily if needed, but I'm hoping there's a better way.
Lastly, I also tried through the iLO-4 web interface, but it wants just the binary firmware file, not the whole package. For some reason, HP requires a support contract (which I don't have) to download the bios file alone, but the full package that contains it is freely available, go figure. If I could figure out how to extract the right binary from the .iso, then the iLO update would probably work, but I'm not even sure what I'm looking for, and there's a lot in there.
Does anyone have any suggestions of what's the best way to get this bios update done? I think my options are 1) find a way to get the .bin to update through iLO, or 2) find a way to get the server to boot from the service pack .iso, or 3) bite the bullet and install Windows or something that can use RPMs and try HP's online update. I'd appreciate any input from HP wizards of which approach is going to be most likely to work.
Thanks in advance!
I downloaded HP's service pack, which is theoretically bootable from a USB stick, but I haven't managed to make that work -- depending on how I write the .iso to the USB, I either get a "failed to mount root" error when booting, or no option to boot from it at all. And HP's USB stick writing utility doesn't detect my USB sticks at all.
The service pack can also theoretically be used to install the firmware from within the OS, but it seems it requires either Windows or an RPM-based Linux, and at the moment I'm running Ubuntu Server on there. If it's the fastest or only way, I could install something else temporarily if needed, but I'm hoping there's a better way.
Lastly, I also tried through the iLO-4 web interface, but it wants just the binary firmware file, not the whole package. For some reason, HP requires a support contract (which I don't have) to download the bios file alone, but the full package that contains it is freely available, go figure. If I could figure out how to extract the right binary from the .iso, then the iLO update would probably work, but I'm not even sure what I'm looking for, and there's a lot in there.
Does anyone have any suggestions of what's the best way to get this bios update done? I think my options are 1) find a way to get the .bin to update through iLO, or 2) find a way to get the server to boot from the service pack .iso, or 3) bite the bullet and install Windows or something that can use RPMs and try HP's online update. I'd appreciate any input from HP wizards of which approach is going to be most likely to work.
Thanks in advance!