HP Insight Control for Linux 6.0 User Guide

8 Using HP Insight Control for Linux to update HP ProLiant
firmware
This chapter addresses the following topics:
• “Overview of updating HP ProLiant firmware” (page 99)
• “Basic firmware update functionality” (page 100)
• “Advanced firmware update functionality” (page 103)
8.1 Overview of updating HP ProLiant firmware
Keeping firmware up to date is a challenging but necessary task. Each ProLiant server usually
has several devices that require regular firmware updates, which can create a burden. HP offers
a set of tools that help simplify this task. These tools are distributed on the HP ProLiant Firmware
Maintenance CD, which is available for download at
http://www.hp.com
HP Insight Control for Linux has additional tools that enable you to integrate the HP ProLiant
Firmware Maintenance CD onto your Insight Control for Linux CMS, then use Insight Control
for Linux to update the firmware on a system, either on demand from the HP Insight Control
user interface, or automatically, when a system is discovered using the Insight Control for Linux
bare-metal discovery feature.
You can configure your CMS to perform basic firmware updates in just a few simple steps. Basic
firmware updates means that when a firmware update is run, all devices on the server are
automatically updated to the latest version of the firmware that was available on the Firmware
CD you chose to download.
NOTE: The Insight Control for Linux firmware update task does not run on HP ProLiant DL100
Series servers.
For those administrators who require more control of what firmware is allowed be installed on
which servers, Insight Control for Linux provides advanced firmware configuration features
that allow the administrator to specify exactly which firmware sets are allowed to be installed
on a per-server basis. The instructions in this section are divided into basic and advanced sections.
IMPORTANT: Firmware updates initiated through Insight Control for Linux are done off line.
A running system will be shut down in order to perform the update.
When the firmware update is complete, the system is left powered off. If you want to boot the
system afterwards, you need to power on the server using the Insight Control for Linux Power
On Server tool
Firmware updates are run using the HP Smart Update Manager (HPSUM) tool from the Firmware
Maintenance CD. All firmware updates are run using the hpsum command's --silent option,
which means that the update is not interactive. The firmware files you provided are scanned,
and any devices that can be updated will be updated.
For more information on how the hpsum command works and available command line options,
see the HP ProLiant Firmware Maintenance CD User Guide, which you can download from the
following web address:
http://www.hp.com
8.1 Overview of updating HP ProLiant firmware 99