topic Re: Installing ESXi 3.5 with HP management on top of vanilla ESXi? in VI: VMware ESXi™ 3.5 Discussions

Installing ESXi 3.5 with HP management on top of vanilla ESXi?

Rossgk — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:16:41 GMT

Good afternoon everyone,

I have an HP server that is running ESXi 3.5 already. It is running the vanilla ESXi. As I need to monitor some stuff, I would like to use the version of ESXi that is bundled with the tools from HP.

Can I simply take that ISO, boot it, and hit repair ?

Do I actually need to reinstall and wipe the drive?

Thank you!

Re: Installing ESXi 3.5 with HP management on top of vanilla ESXi?

marcelo_soares — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:19:36 GMT

I'm not used to this HP version of ESXi, but I'm pretty sure you can do it with no problem. Anyway, if you are not aware of loosing your configurations on this ESX you can reinstall it from zero and just maintain your VMFS intact in case you have VMs on it - than the work is to register all vms and reconfigure networking/storage.

Hope this helps,

Marcelo Soares

VMWare Certified Professional 310

Technical Support Engineer

Linux Server Senior Administrator

Re: Installing ESXi 3.5 with HP management on top of vanilla ESXi?

Rossgk — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:25:19 GMT

I thought doing a re-install would wipe the drive. What if the VMFS partition is on the same drive as the installation of ESXi itself?

Thank you !

Re: Installing ESXi 3.5 with HP management on top of vanilla ESXi?

marcelo_soares — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:28:51 GMT

The installation will ask you if you want to maintain the VMFS or not... all the rest will be erased, but not VMFS.

Just don't do it drunk or high...

Marcelo Soares

VMWare Certified Professional 310

Technical Support Engineer

Linux Server Senior Administrator

Re: Installing ESXi 3.5 with HP management on top of vanilla ESXi?

Jaysonp — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:24:53 GMT

We are running ESXi 3.5 with the HP management agents built in. All we can see is Processor, Fans, Memory, Power etc., no storage related information. Do you know if there are any agents to monitor storage. Our servers are ML350 G5. I contacted HP and they told me to install the agents from thier website but they require a service console to install them so I don't think that is possible with esxi.

Re: Installing ESXi 3.5 with HP management on top of vanilla ESXi?

DSTAVERT — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:47:29 GMT

The HP offline bundle is available from the website. It includes directions on installing using the remote CLI tools. You can install the VMware VMA appliance or get the CLI environment from your ESXi server web interface links.

Re: Installing ESXi 3.5 with HP management on top of vanilla ESXi?

Jaysonp — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:51:01 GMT

I have installed the RCLI but I see now way that this help with the HP agents talking to HP SIM to show storage information.

Re: Installing ESXi 3.5 with HP management on top of vanilla ESXi?

DSTAVERT — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:59:48 GMT

You need to get the HP Offline Bundle from the HP website. You need to use the RCLI to install the Offline Bundle.

Re: Installing ESXi 3.5 with HP management on top of vanilla ESXi?

Jaysonp — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:14:20 GMT

OK, i did download the offline bundle from HP. do you know which RCLI command i Use to install it with? Is it vmware-cmd.pl?

esxcfg-advcfg.pl

esxcfg-cfgbackup.pl

esxcfg-dns.pl

esxcfg-dumppart.pl

esxcfg-module.pl

esxcfg-mpath.pl

esxcfg-nas.pl

esxcfg-nics.pl

esxcfg-ntp.pl

esxcfg-rescan.pl

esxcfg-route.pl

esxcfg-snmp.pl

esxcfg-syslog.pl

esxcfg-user.pl

esxcfg-vmhbadevs.pl

esxcfg-vmknic.pl

esxcfg-vswitch.pl

EULA

EULA.rtf

svmotion.pl

vicfg-advcfg.pl

vicfg-cfgbackup.pl

vicfg-dns.pl

vicfg-dumppart.pl

vicfg-module.pl

vicfg-mpath.pl

vicfg-nas.pl

vicfg-nics.pl

vicfg-ntp.pl

vicfg-rescan.pl

vicfg-route.pl

vicfg-snmp.pl

vicfg-syslog.pl

vicfg-user.pl

vicfg-vmhbadevs.pl

vicfg-vmknic.pl

vicfg-vswitch.pl

vifs.pl

vihostupdate.pl

vmkfstools.pl

vmkuptime.pl

vmware-cmd.pl

Re: Installing ESXi 3.5 with HP management on top of vanilla ESXi?

DSTAVERT — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:43:36 GMT

The update instructions are on the page or tab you downloaded from.

Re: Installing ESXi 3.5 with HP management on top of vanilla ESXi?

Jaysonp — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:46:05 GMT

The instructions on the page I downloaded it from (hp.com) are very brief and just basically talk about executing 2 script files. Which to my knowledge can't be done with ESXi. Included in the download is a readme file that has basically more details but the same (thing running the script files).

No instructions on installing on ESXi.

Re: Installing ESXi 3.5 with HP management on top of vanilla ESXi?

DSTAVERT — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:01:16 GMT

The scripts are in the rcli tools that you said you installed. vihostupdate.pl is the script you will be using. Follow the instructions. Do a little reading about the rcli tools.

something similar to.

vihostupdate.pl --server --install --bundle bundle.zip

Re: Installing ESXi 3.5 with HP management on top of vanilla ESXi?

Jaysonp — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:34:52 GMT

First of all I would like to thank you for all your help. You seem quite knowledgeable. I've read up on the vihostupdate.pl. I'm still having some difficulties putting all the pieces together. The usage is basically like you posted there are variations.

The tool viupdate.pl seems to be looking for a zip file.

The HP management agents come in a .tgz file called hpmgmt-8.2.0-vmware3x.tgz, not sure if this can just replace the .zip file as .tgz is a type of compressed file.

My second issue is here are the instructions from HP:

There are two (2) steps to perform for an installation of the agents.

These steps are:

1 - Execute the script PreInstall_Setup.sh.

NOTE: This script will request a reboot of the system.

The reboot must be done to provide a workaround for a system hang

that has been seen intermittently on installation.

PreInstall_Setup.sh must be executed before executing

./installvm820.sh --install or

./installvm820.sh --silent --inputfile < filename >

2 - After the reboot, log onto the console operating sysetm, change the

working directory to the working directory where the files were

unbundled (e.g. /home/vmware/hpmgmt/820 ).

Use the installation script (installvm820.sh) to complete the rest of

the installation.

The files they referenced are inside the tgz file along with other files that I believe are required as they are larger that the sh files.

It just seems that this method is (vihostupdate.pl) is used with zip files that have everything in them needed to install. I can't see a way of telling it to run the .sh files.

Re: Installing ESXi 3.5 with HP management on top of vanilla ESXi?

DSTAVERT — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:28:53 GMT

You have downloaded the wrong product for ESXi. If you have ESXi installed on USB then you can download the CIM update ISO file for ESXi and boot with that. It will update the CIM providers. If not you will need to find the link on the HP site for the offline bundle for ESXi.