Bits & Other Bytes

We have had a rash of issues where by upgrading ILO firmware via the WebUI has been failing.  It looks like it finishes, but when you log back in, it is still the original firmware from when you started the upgraded.  And no matter what you do via the WebUI, it just will not upgrade.  So to upgrade the stubborn firmware, the simplest thing to do is SSH the ILO directly and upload the firmware via the console interface.  Below are the steps to do this.

First, you need a running web server to pull the firmware from.  IIS is usually the handiest, so it is simply a matter of adding a mime-type for the binary firmware file.  Open an administrative command prompt and run:

c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe set config /section:staticContent /+"[fileExtension='.bin',mimeType='application/x-bin']"
iisreset /restart

Extract the ILO firmware bin with 7-Zip and put the bin somewhere within IIS that you can download it.   Next – to save myself extra grief, I also make sure I can actually download the firmware to a regular PC with a browser before continuing.  So open the browser of your choice and make sure you can download the bin to your PC before continuing.

Putty the ILO interface, accepting the SSH key (if prompted), and login.  Once logged in, check, then download the new firmware with the following commands.

*** Note – the ILO will automatically reboot once it successfully downloads the firmware and does not give any indication of the reboot.  As a result, you might want to start a continuous ping to the ILO to see once it has rebooted and is back up ***

show /map1/firmware1
cd /map1/firmware1
load -source http://http_server_ip/ilox_xxx.bin

Once the ILO reboots, you should have a working ILO with the firmware version you want / need.

As always – Use any tips, tricks, or scripts I post at your own risk.