Upgrade firmware in HP servers using HP Service Pack for ProLiant and Cobbler

Posted Dec 31, 2013 Updated Jan 17, 2026

By Petr Ruzicka

views 2 min read

Original post from linux.xvx.cz

If you have to upgrade the firmware (iLO, BIOS, Disk firmware, NIC firmware, …) inside many HP servers and for this task it’s useful to use HP Service Pack for ProLiant (HP SPP).

This iso file contains the firmware for all supported HP servers. The easiest way is to boot from the ISO file and upgrade the server where it is running. If you have many servers - it’s better to use an automated way using PXEboot, Cobbler and NFS.

I would like to share a few steps on how I did it in my environment.

Download the HP SPP and prepare the NFS:

  
yum install -y nfs-utils rpcbind

chkconfig nfs on

mkdir -p /data/hp/HP_Service_Pack_for_Proliant
chown -R nfsnobody:nfsnobody /data

cat > /etc/exports << EOF
/data                                   0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0(ro,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check,async,crossmnt,fsid=0)
EOF

cd /data/hp/ || exit
wget http://ftp.okhysing.is/hp/spp/2013-09/HP_Service_Pack_for_Proliant_2013.09.0-0_744345-001_spp_2013.09.0-SPP2013090.2013_0830.30.iso

ln -s HP_Service_Pack_for_Proliant_2013.09.0-0_744345-001_spp_2013.09.0-SPP2013090.2013_0830.30.iso HPSPP.iso
echo "/data/hp/HPSPP.iso /data/hp/HP_Service_Pack_for_Proliant iso9660 ro,loop,auto 0 0" >> /etc/fstab

mount /data/hp/HP_Service_Pack_for_Proliant

Now install and configure Cobbler to boot the HP SPP using PXE:

  
# Install EPEL
MAJOR_RELEASE=$(sed 's/.* \([0-9]*\)\.[0-9] .*/\1/' /etc/redhat-release)
cd /tmp/ || exit
lftp -e "mget /pub/linux/fedora/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release*.noarch.rpm; quit;" http://ftp.fi.muni.cz/
rpm -Uvh ./epel*"${MAJOR_RELEASE}"*.noarch.rpm

# Install Cobbler
yum install -y cobbler-web fence-agents git hardlink ipmitool dhcp

sed -i.orig 's/module = authn_denyall/module = authn_configfile/' /etc/cobbler/modules.conf
HTDIGEST_HASH=$(printf admin:Cobbler:admin123 | md5sum -)
echo "admin:Cobbler:${HTDIGEST_HASH:0:32}" >> /etc/cobbler/users.digest

PASSWORD_HASH=$(openssl passwd -1 'admin123')
sed -i.orig "s/^\(anamon_enabled:\).*/\1 1/;s@^\(default_password_crypted:\).*@\1 \"$PASSWORD_HASH\"@;s/^\(manage_dhcp:\).*/\1 1/;s/^\(next_server:\).*/\1 10.29.49.7/;s/^\(pxe_just_once:\).*/\1 1/;s/^\(server:\).*/\1 10.29.49.7/;s/^\(scm_track_enabled:\).*/\1 1/;s/^power_management_default_type:.*/power_management_default_type: 'ilo'/" /etc/cobbler/settings

# Change DHCPd template
sed -i.orig 's/192.168.1.0/10.29.49.0/;s/192.168.1.5;/10.29.49.1;/;s/192.168.1.1;/10.226.32.44;/;s/255.255.255.0/255.255.255.128/;s/192.168.1.100 192.168.1.254/10.29.49.100 10.29.49.126/;' /etc/cobbler/dhcp.template

# Configure DHCPd
sed -i.orig 's/^DHCPDARGS=.*/DHCPDARGS="eth0"/' /etc/sysconfig/dhcpd

SPP_INITRD=$(ls /data/hp/HP_Service_Pack_for_Proliant/pxe/spp*/initrd.img)
SPP_KERNEL=$(ls /data/hp/HP_Service_Pack_for_Proliant/pxe/spp*/vmlinuz)
cobbler distro add --name=hp-sos --arch=i386 --kernel="$SPP_KERNEL" --initrd="$SPP_INITRD" \
  --kopts '!kssendmac !ksdevice !lang !text rw root=/dev/ram0 init=/bin/init loglevel=3 splash=verbose showopts media=net iso1=nfs://10.29.49.7/data/hp/HPSPP.iso iso1mnt=/mnt/bootdevice iso1opts=nolock,timeo=600 d3bug'

cobbler profile add --name="Firmware_Upgrade-Automatic" --distro=hp-sos --kopts="TYPE=AUTOMATIC AUTOPOWEROFFONSUCCESS=no AUTOREBOOTONSUCCESS=yes" --kickstart=""
cobbler profile add --name="Firmware_Upgrade-Interactive" --distro=hp-sos --kopts="TYPE=MANUAL AUTOPOWEROFFONSUCCESS=no" --kickstart=""
cobbler profile add --name="Firmware_Upgrade-Automatic_POWEROFF" --distro=hp-sos --kopts="TYPE=AUTOMATIC" --kickstart=""

service cobblerd restart
chkconfig cobblerd on
service httpd restart
chkconfig httpd on
chkconfig dhcpd on
service xinetd restart

cobbler sync

# Just to be sure
chkconfig iptables off
service iptables stop

Once the tftp, NFS, dhcp is ready you can try to “Boot from Network” one of the servers. If the networking is working fine you should at least get the IP from the DHCP server and the main “Cobbler blue” menu.

You can see the full video recorded during “test” firmware upgrade below:

(some parts of the video are accelerated)

Enjoy :-)

Linux, Networking, linux.xvx.cz

This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.

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