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  • XenServer and HP Firmware Woes

    December 23, 2015

    XenServer

    It’s a virtual world nowadays.

    But sometimes, even in a virtual world, physical problems can be a real pain.

    Recently I was involved in upgrading/migrating an outdated XenServer 6.0 setup, running on HP BL460c Gen7 and Gen8.

    The Gen8 boxes went fine, and the customer was really impressed with the performance of XenServer 6.5 SP1.

    The Gen7 boxes were quite a different story. Yes, I’m ware they are not on the official HCL First of all, as any good admin should do, I was upgrading firmware and BIOS when the server was off duty anyway.

    The first server I updated, XenServer didn’t detect the Emulex 10Gb ports anymore. But on the second one, it did… The third one was a failure again.

    Then I noticed something wrong on the boot screen:

    ILO Boot

    I used the HP Firmware CD to update everything, and although the version v10.5.155.0 is the correct one, it did’nt quite seem to work. Also on ILO, the config looked very wrong.

    So… why? Well it seems HP has had a long history of firmware misbehavior on the G7 series, and somewhere along the line people suggested to reflash the firmware again with the same version.

    That’s not possible with the HP Firmware CD, so I downloaded the Emulex firmware CD from the HP site. That did come labeled as v10.5.160.0… but installed v10.5.155.0 anyway.

    After that “update”, no more strange screen at boot and… XenServer recognized the NIC’s just fine once again.

    So I know they are becoming old, those G7’s, but maybe this will help someone facing the same or similar issues.

    Thanks

    Bart Jacobs

     







    About Bart Jacobs

    Bart Jacobs is a Senior System Engineer/Consultant based in Belgium. He started his career back in 1998. One of the first projects he worked on in those days was Citrix Metaframe 1.8 on Microsoft Windows NT 4 Terminal Server codename "Hydra". Over the years, Citrix technology has always been a major theme in his professional career, resulting in becoming a true technical expert in the matter. In the last few years, he has also become an expert in virtualization technology, with a special interest in a real challenger in this business: Citrix XenServer. Bart has founded his own company BJ IT back in 2007 and is mainly working as a (Citrix) consultant now. In 2019, Bart received his Citrix CTA award.

    View all posts by Bart Jacobs →

    6 Responses to “XenServer and HP Firmware Woes”

    1. Mjestic Says:
      July 4, 2017 at 3:32 am

      I just hit the same issue after replacing an old Gen 6 with Gen 7 and as good admins do, they upgrade the firmware while the servers are offline. I sadly experienced the exact same issue as the OP.

      In case someone is looking for a non-HP support login URL, I’ve managed to find one after a bit of searching.

      h20564.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/readIndex?sp4ts.oid=4194638&swLangOid=8&swEnvOid=54

      This is still valid as of 4th July 2017. [Webster: The link is no longer valid as of 30-Dec-2021]

    2. Peter Says:
      June 27, 2016 at 6:00 am

      Hello,
      Thank you for your report,we have this kind of problem atm and are working on it..
      But it looks like the Firmware issue you mentioned…

      Thank you for writing this…as the others said..it safed a lot of time and troubleshooting also..
      Kind regards,
      Peter

    3. Alexander Geeraerts Says:
      March 2, 2016 at 9:58 am

      Thanks for sharing!

      Faced the same problem, so you saved me a lot of time.

    4. Mark Says:
      February 4, 2016 at 5:14 am

      Can you let me know the link to the driver you used? Was it a bootable ISO?

      • Bart Jacobs Says:
        February 5, 2016 at 4:59 am

        Hi Mark,

        I assume you mean the Emulex firmware CD? Yes that’s a bootable ISO. For the BL460c G7, it’s here:

        h20566.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?sp4ts.oid=4194639&swItemId=co_154246_1&swEnvOid=54 [Webster: The link is no longer valid as of 30-Dec-2021]

        As for the HP Firmware CD itself, you need to have an active warranty or support agreement nowadays. That’s a shame obviously.

        But you can get the Emulex firmware CD without.

    5. Anwar Shaikh Says:
      January 3, 2016 at 7:18 am

      Faced this issue with our G7 as well, and after a call with HP we flashed an older version and then flashed latest over it and it worked fine. Thanks for sharing.