CentOS - Jul 2019 - HPE ProLiant - support Linux Vendor Firmware Service ?

On 01/07/2019 18:38, mark wrote:
> lejeczek via CentOS wrote:
>> hi guys
>>
>> does anybody here runs on HPE ProLiant? I was hoping you can tell
whether
>> HPE support Linux Vendor
>> Firmware Service and you actually get to upgrade ProLiants'
>> BIOS/firmware via fwupdmgr?
>>
>>
> Dunno 'bout "Linux Vendor Firmware Service", but HPE support,
ah, yeah...
> let's not go there. And they *really* want you to use MS DOS to update
the
> firmware. Oh, and when we had support in to do repairs about 6 or so
> months ago on our small SGI supercomputer (they bought SGI), the techs
> were worried, because HPE was spinning off support to Unisys, and how they
> were going to get parts....
>
>       mark "at least it's not Oracle/Sun support is all I can
say"
>
hi, thanks for the info.
And you have tried fwupdmgr and no positive results? Which
Gen your ProLiants are?
On https://fwupd.org/ HPE logo shows up plus some notes but
first-hand experience is as always best to have, which I do
not have as I only begin to consider HPE hardware for the
first time.

Dell, which I have had for many years, do their own OMSA
which is better than nothing but this too is flaky at times.
I also a few years ago got Dell's tech support telling me to
do MS-DOS stuff in order to update BIOS.

I'm thinking & hoping that maybe IBM, since they are now
Redhat, will supply us with premium grade software support
for their hardware. Although IBM is a bit like Intel in my
opinion - they do not innovate that much, are old and
struggle to understand the end users like us.

On Mon, 1 Jul 2019 19:38:29 +0100
lejeczek via CentOS wrote:
> I also a few years ago got Dell's tech support telling me to
> do MS-DOS stuff in order to update BIOS.
So what's wrong with using DOS to update firmware?  DOS is a small and
simple program loader that's unlikely to require much in the way of hardware
to work and is unlikely to be infected by a virus in today's world.

Would you rather have to boot a mulit-gigabyte image of who-knows-what that does
ghawd-knows-what for what should be simple task?

-- 
MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Real D 3D Digital Cinema ~ www.melvilletheatre.com

Frank Cox wrote:
> On Mon, 1 Jul 2019 19:38:29 +0100
> lejeczek via CentOS wrote:
>
>> I also a few years ago got Dell's tech support telling me to
>> do MS-DOS stuff in order to update BIOS.
>
> So what's wrong with using DOS to update firmware?  DOS is a small and
> simple program loader that's unlikely to require much in the way of
> hardware to work and is unlikely to be infected by a virus in today's
> world.
>
> Would you rather have to boot a mulit-gigabyte image of who-knows-what
> that does ghawd-knows-what for what should be simple task?
>
The above is really weird. From CentOS 5, 6, and 7, I've run Dell's
firmware update from a running system, no OMSA. Updates with no problems.

And I have to say I really like Dell's firmware installer - it scans the
system, and then *tells* you that a) it is for that system, and b) that
this is newer than the current, and do you want to install.

       mark

lejeczek via CentOS wrote:
> On 01/07/2019 18:38, mark wrote:
>> lejeczek via CentOS wrote:
>>>
>>> does anybody here runs on HPE ProLiant? I was hoping you can tell
>>> whether HPE support Linux Vendor
>>> Firmware Service and you actually get to upgrade ProLiants'
>>> BIOS/firmware via fwupdmgr?
>>>
>> Dunno 'bout "Linux Vendor Firmware Service", but HPE
support, ah,
>> yeah... let's not go there. And they *really* want you to use MS
DOS to
>> update the firmware. Oh, and when we had support in to do repairs about
>> 6 or so
>> months ago on our small SGI supercomputer (they bought SGI), the techs
>> were worried, because HPE was spinning off support to Unisys, and how
>> they were going to get parts....
>>
>> mark "at least it's not Oracle/Sun support is all I can
say"
>>
> hi, thanks for the info. And you have tried fwupdmgr and no positive
> results? Which Gen your ProLiants are?
I don't remember if I ever used that. Only had one HP Proliant, and did
not like it - a gen 5, I think it was, and, on boot, 70 sec *before* the
logo even appeared. That system was my "why I don't care about systemd
SEE
HOW FAST WE BOOT!!!", when it took almost five MINUTES before it ever got
to the grub screen.
<snip>
> Dell, which I have had for many years, do their own OMSA
> which is better than nothing but this too is flaky at times. I also a few
> years ago got Dell's tech support telling me to do MS-DOS stuff in
order
> to update BIOS.
As I just said in another post, I've never had tech support tell me that.
They give me a link for a .BIN, which I run, and it's an shell script with
embedded binary software.
>
> I'm thinking & hoping that maybe IBM, since they are now
> Redhat, will supply us with premium grade software support
> for their hardware. Although IBM is a bit like Intel in my opinion - they
> do not innovate that much, are old and struggle to understand the end
> users like us.
I dunno 'bout that. IBM hardware has always been really solid, in my
experience. And you have to understand, they do a lot of
service/consulting.

Understand us? IBM's been seriously big in Linux from very early. Hell,
around 18 years ago, one of their folks had the use of a Z-series
mainframe, and maxed it out, using IBM's VM (which goes back to the
seventies, really), with 48,000 separate instances of Linux, and it ran
fine on 32,000 VMs....

Hell, I wasn't happy, a few years ago, when I found out that RH's CEO
since a few years ago was a former exec at... Delta Airlines. I'm sure he
know soooo much about Unix, Linux, or o/s's in general....

     mark

On Mon, Jul 01, 2019 at 12:58:12PM -0600, Frank Cox
wrote:
> So what's wrong with using DOS to update firmware?  DOS is a small
> and simple program loader that's unlikely to require much in the way
> of hardware to work and is unlikely to be infected by a virus in
> today's world. 
Honestly, I've tried to use a .EXE to update the BIOS on my personal
system, and I never was able to find a bootable FreeDOS image that
could run it from a USB boot disk.  Who has floppy disks anymore?  I
don't even have a CDROM drive.  I never ran DOS so I honestly have no
clue what I'm doing with it.

Fortunately, newer hardware let me drop the executable in the EFI
volume for updates.
> Would you rather have to boot a mulit-gigabyte image of
> who-knows-what that does ghawd-knows-what for what should be simple
> task?
It's not a simple task.  Do it wrong, and you've bricked your system.

-- 
Jonathan Billings <billings at negate.org>