Topics: HMC
HMC upgrade
The following procedure describes how to perform a command-line based upgrade of the Hardware Management Console (HMC) from version V8 R8.6.0 SP1 to V8 R8.7.0 SP1. This involves these two steps:
- First, upgrade to version V8 R8.7.0 (also known as MH01704).
- Next, update to service pack 1 of V8 R8.7.0
- The HMC, called hmc01, at IP address 172.16.52.100.
- A separate AIX system, called aix01, at IP address 172.16.52.101.
So, let's first perform the upgrade to version V8 R8.7.0. This is based on https://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=nas8N1020108. Download files img2a, img3a, base.img, disk1.img and hmcnetworkfiles.sum into a folder on the separate AIX system. You may download these files directly from ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/server/hmc/network/v8870/x86/ to the AIX system.
You can use FTP to download the files, by logging in anonymously to the IBM FTP server and using any password (it says to specify your complete email address, but in fact anything you type will be fine). For example:
Downloading these files may take a while as they are several gigabytes in size.# ftp ftp.software.ibm.com Connected to dispsd-40-www3.boulder.ibm.com. 220 ProFTPD 1.3.5b Server (proftpd) Name (ftp.software.ibm.com:root): anonymous 331 Anonymous login ok, send your complete email address as your password Password: 230 Anonymous access granted, restrictions apply ftp> bin 200 Type set to I ftp> cd software/server/hmc/network/v8870/x86/ 250 CWD command successful ftp> promp Interactive mode off. ftp> mget * 200 PORT command successful 150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for img3a (34015945 bytes) ...
Or, if you have wget installed on the AIX system, the following command can be used to get the individual files, for example:
# wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/server/hmc/network/v8870/x86/*Now that you have downloaded all the required files, for example in folder /HMC on the AIX system, make sure that the files can be read by everyone:
Then, log in to the command line of the HMC:# chmod -R 755 /HMC # chown -R root.system /HMC
For this to work, you obviously need to know the password for the hscroot account on the HMC, and you need to have remote SSH access enabled on the HMC. If necessary to enable the remote SSH access, log in with a web browser to the GUI of the HMC at https://172.16.52.100 and change the remote access setting through the GUI (we'll not cover how to do this in this procedure though).# ssh -l hscroot 172.16.52.100 hscroot@172.16.52.100's password: Last login: Wed Jan 17 22:24:49 2018 hscroot@hmcw01:~>
On the HMC, run the following command to save the upgrade data to disk:
Then, tell it to go download the upgrade files through SFTP from the AIX server:# saveupgdata -r disk
Note here how the root password of the AIX system is set to P@ssw0rd, and that the files will be downloaded from the /HMC folder on the AIX system. Also note here, that with newer OpenSSH levels on AIX, root may not be allowed to start up a SFTP session to the AIX system remotely, and thus, in that case, it may be better to use a different user account (other than root) to download the files. Any account will do, as long as that account has access to the files in the /HMC folder (or any other folder name, where you have downloaded the HMC network installation files).# getupgfiles -r sftp -h 172.16.52.101 -u root --passwd 'P@ssw0rd' -d /HMC
Downloading these files to the HMC may take a while. If you want, you can start up an additional SSH session to the HMC (log in to the HMC in a separate window), and then run the following command to monitor the progress of the files download to file system /hmcdump:
After a while, the prompt will be returned.# monhmc -r disk 1
Then, set up the system for an altdisk boot:
Then, reboot the system to initiate the upgrade:# chhmc -c altdiskboot -s enable --mode upgrade
This upgrade may take a while, like 15 minutes or so, depending on the size of the upgrade and model of the HMC. You may set up a simple ping to the HMC, so you can monitor when it shows back up online after the upgrade:# hmcshutdown -r -t now
Once it start pinging again, you may start up a new SSH session to the HMC. Please note that even though you can log back in to the HMC, that the upgrade may not yet be entirely complete. Use the following command on the HMC to test if the upgrade is complete:# ping 172.16.52.100
If this command returns "A connection to the Command Server failed", then the upgrade is still not yet complete. Please wait a while before proceeding, and repeat the lshmc command after a few minutes again. Once the lshmc command properly outputs the version information, then you may proceed. For example:# lshmc -V
At this point, the upgrade to version V8 R8.7.0 is complete, and you can proceed with the next step: Updating the HMC to service Pack 1 (also known as MH01725).hscroot@hmc01:~> lshmc -V "version= Version: 8 Release: 8.7.0 Service Pack: 0 HMC Build level 1709071101 ","base_version=V8R8.7.0 "
This service pack can be downloaded from IBM Fix Central. On this site, search for your HMC model. For example, if you have a 7042 model HMC, type in the search window: "7042". Then select V8R8.7.0, and then download only MH01725. Do not download MH01704 (we already completed that step above). You'll have to download an update ISO image (for example: HMC_Update_V8R870_SP1_x86.iso), and 4 MH01725* files. Put these files in a separate folder on the AIX system, for example in /SP1.
On the HMC, run the following command to start the update:
# updhmc -t sftp -h 172.16.52.101 -u root --passwd 'P@ssw0rd' -f /SP1/HMC_Update_V8R870_SP1_x86.iso -rThis command will initiate the update, and the HMC will reboot by itself. This step may take another 15 minutes or so. You can check again, once the HMC is available after the reboot, that the update is complete, by running the "lshmc -V" command. The lshmc -V command should output that service pack 1 is installed.
For example:
At this point, both the upgrade and update are complete. You may want to log in to the GUI of the HMC using a web browser, and check for any alert messages, and close them out. Usually, the upgrade/update of an HMC may trigger a few alert messages, and there's no need for IBM to respond to them (if you're using the call-home feature of the HMC), as you already know that these messages occurred during the upgrade/update.hscroot@hmc01:~> lshmc -V "version= Version: 8 Release: 8.7.0 Service Pack: 1 HMC Build level 1712090351 MH01725 - HMC 870 Service Pack 1 Release [x86_64] ","base_version=V8R8.7.0 "
Please also note that with this release (V8 R8.7.0), there is no longer a classic interface, so the web-based GUI of the HMC may look somewhat different to you, if you're used to using the classic web-based GUI.
If using sftp isn't an option, for example because sftp isn't allowed or not available on any server, you can also first transfer the ISO image over to the HMC, and then run the update from the HMC itself.
This works as follows, assuming you want to update the HMC with fix MH01752:
First, download the ISO image from IBM fix central. You'll notice that for fix MH01752, the iso image has a filename called MH01752_x86.iso. Transfer this file over to the hardware management console - assuming here that your HMC is called "hmc01":
Now the iso image file is in the home directory of user hscroot on the HMC. If you log in through ssh to the HMC, and just do a "ls", you'll see the file right there.# scp MH01752_x86.sio hscroot@hmc01:~
Next, issue the upgrade from the HMC command line. Be sure to use the "-c" option as well, as that will tell the HMC to delete the iso image file once the update has been completed:
That's it - that will update the HMC using the local iso image file on the HMC itself.# updhmc -t disk -f /home/hscroot/MH01752_x86.sio -r -c