Firmware Archives

HPE iLO (Hewlett Packard Enterprise Integrated Lights-Out) is a wonderful tool when your servers are remote. It’s important to keep it up to date as if not properly secured it could be a risk of compromise to your environment.

In this post, I’ll show step-by-step how to update the HPE iLO firmware on your server. This will cover iLO 5 specifically however, older versions of iLO will follow a similar process.

The Process

Download the latest iLO firmware from HPE.
Login to iLO.
Click on Firmware & OS Software

Click Update Firmware

Select the iLO firmware file you downloaded from HPE.

If you have a TPM you will see a warning saying CAUTION: Suspend or back up any software that uses the installed TPM or TM, or risk losing your data. Select the Confirm TPM override check box to proceed.

Double-check your OS documentation to see if there is a risk of data loss and if you should be disabling items like BitLocker first.

It’s normal to not see this if you don’t have a TPM. If all is safe then select Confirm TPM override.

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Aruba Access Point Firmware Upgrade

September 16, 2023

I’m a fan of doing as much as possible with CLI. It always feels more complete and can sometimes be automated. In this post, I will detail step-by-step how to upgrade the firmware image on an Aruba AP (Access Point) with CLI.

ArubaOS is also called Aruba Instant and has nothing to do with Aruba Instant On as that is another product line that is cloud-managed but not cloud-managed with Aruba Central. I’ll be using the term ArubaOS (AOS) in this post to try and keep things as clear as possible.

If you upgrade to AOS 10 you will need to manage the APs with Aruba Central. AOS 8 is the last and still currently developed version that does not require Aruba Central. You can confirm that AOS 8 is still being developed and maintained by checking the Aruba End of Life page for AOS 8.

The Process

Review the release notes for the version of AOS you want to upgrade to. Specifically the section Supported Hardware Platforms as that will help you determine your upgrade path.
SSH into the Virtual Controller

If you have more than on AP in your VC (Virtual Controller) you need to define one of them as the preferred conductor. When a preferred conductor is set that will always be the AP running the VC.

Run the command show ap-env to see if you have preferred conductor.

If the output doesn’t show iap_conductor:1 then you currently don’t have a preferred conductor. (If your firmware is really old it might show up as iap_master:1 as that was the old name for it.)

Run the command iap-conductor to set the AP that is currently running the VC to be the preferred conductor. (If your firmware is really old the command won’t be recognized and you’ll need to run the command iap-master instead.)

Running the iap-conductor command

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Lenovo Update TPM 1.2 to 2.0

July 8, 2023

If you have an older Lenovo server with a TPM (Trusted Platform Module) it may be running with TPM version 1.2 and not TPM version 2.0. One of many reasons to upgrade your TPM is because TPM 2.0 is needed to install ESXi 8.

In this post I will show you how to update the Lenovo TPM from version 1.2 to version 2.0.

Prerequisites

You will need to know how to assert physical presence on the Lenovo server. If you don’t know how to do that I detail the process in a post called Lenovo Remote Physical Presence.

I would also make sure all your firmware is fully up to date as you may not see this option if it is super old and you should be keeping your firmware up to date.

Make sure you understand that anything stored in TPM will be lost. This likely isn’t an issue if you are doing a fresh setup.

The Process

Login to the XClarity Controller
Enter the BIOS setup
Assert your physical presence over the Lenovo server.
Click on UEFI Setup

Click on System Settings

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Onyx (MLNX-OS) Upgrade

June 24, 2023

In this post I will show you how to upgrade your switch running Onyx (MLNX-OS). I will detail how to do it via command line and via the web interface.

The best way to make sure your upgrade is a success is to plan your upgrade path. I recommend following the upgrade paths as sometimes jumping from an old version to the newest version isn’t supported and could lead to issues.

When Nvidia purchased Mellanox some of the upgrade path planning resources became locked away behind a login/pay wall. One of the items behind the wall are the detailed release notes.

The release notes are the documents that will tell you exactly which versions are supported on which switches and what your upgrade path should be as sometimes direct upgrades skipping version can cause issues.

You get access to the release notes on your switch directly but only for the version you are currently running. I tried to see if I could extract the release notes from the upgrade image but they seem to be stored as blobs and I couldn’t figure out a way to open them.

Fortunately Onyx is used by other OEMs like Hewlett Packard Enterprise for example. You can find a public version of the upgrade path the HPE documentation here.

My SN2410 switch was originally running version 3.6.6102 my upgrade path was the following

3.7.1134
3.8.2204
3.9.1020
3.9.3302
3.10.2102
3.10.4006

With the upgrade path planning out of the way I will now show you step-by-step how to upgrade Onyx (MLNX-OS) via CLI or the Web UI.

The CLI Way

SSH into the switch.
Run the show version command to see what version you are currently running.

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Cisco UCS Upgrade with Firmware Auto Install

March 10, 2023

Recently I needed to upgrade a Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) system and while Cisco does have documentation about it. The process can be scary and could use more screenshots. Here is my step by step guide on how to upgrade a Cisco UCS via the Firmware Auto Install with the Cisco UCS Manager.

Fully planning your Cisco UCS upgrade is very important. There are a lot of things that need to be checked to make sure the upgrade is a success and that everything is compatible. In the past I’ve needed to upgrade my ESXi to as high as they can go based on the VMware and Cisco Compatibility Matrix and then upgrade the Cisco UCS. Then go back and upgrade ESXi again and then upgrade Cisco UCS again.