I'm having to frequently access servers via ilo – ssh only, no web interface. Am I meant to be able to bring a server back up through just this tool? Or utilize others like ipmtool to be able to do things? Similarly when the server's stuck in boot, how can I tell from this interface? So far all I can tel is how to power on/off, not obtain any useful information from the server.
There seems to be various syntax as well, one where I can go into map1, another with admin1.
Also although there is a power command, there is no view status option that I'm aware of.
Can I get advice, or a point to the right direction to find out this information?
Best Answer
To view the "status" of the OS without being able to look at the screen you will need some hook back into the OS (otherwise you only have things like CPU or disk usage to indicate potentially still booting etc. to run off), HP provides an iLO agent driver that you may be able to query while the OS (and therefore HP iLO driver) is running to check health but I am assuming you are logging into the machine as you are aware it has some issue (and so the agent is unlikely to be running) and therefore want to see blue screens of death etc. This is known as "out-of-band" management.
The Windows 2003 bootloader and above supports a little known feature called Emergency Management Services (EMS), this allows you to interact with Windows on a very low level and view bug check (BSOD) information. Due to the low level EMS is sent over a serial port rather than a network connection.
HP iLO however allows you access to that serial port.
Source: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ODh3V_Y4XUkJ:www.netexpertise.eu/en/windows/hp-ilo-console.html+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
See also : http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=174352&seqNum=3
Linux will no doubt have something equivalent (something like : http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/linux-and-open-source/learn-to-use-a-serial-console-on-linux/ and https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SerialConsoleHowto ).