Vendor Specific Question - HP DL G5 - sim agents -snmp

[ayger]

Hi everybody,
Tried to search first but no result came up.

I have some DL 380 G5's that i would like to put in production line with vicibox, some pciE E1/digium cards and voip sip trunks as well.

While experimenting with the vicibox-all-in-one-installation-medium i realised that i couldn't install the sim pack provided by HP. (vicibox is based on suse 12.1 if i'm not mistaking)

So my question is:

Should i keep trying to enchance the suse 12 kernel wth several hacks and mods from here and there to install the sim agents, keeping in mind that i could probably break any future update/upgrade, or should i go to the route building all the way up from scratch , based eg on Centos where i more familiar with to install the aproporate agents?

As we speak, i have in test enviroment one DL G5 and it's working on its maximum noise (fans >80%, power supplies >70 % with *almost* zero load) due to lack of agents.

Any thoughts would be highly appreciated.

Sorry for my english, its not my mother language.

[williamconley]

What is a SIM agent?

[DomeDan]

williamconley:
Systems Insight Manager, its a package (for HP servers only) containing drivers and applications to view the status of the hardware, sensors, BIOS configurations etc. Let me google that for you

ayger:
I'm using DL360 G3 servers and looked into the "HP Health Package" (hpasm), for my old server there was only a SUSE 9 package available,
but i tried that on my vicibox openSUSE 11.3 installation and it worked, the only thing I use it for is to let the software control the fan speed, and logging temperatures is cool too.

But I've not tested any G5 server, but try it out with a recent SUSE package and post your results.

and if there's problems then you could look into goautodial which uses CentOS, and if you dont like the interface you can simply do a svn upgrade to vicidial.

[williamconley]

If it's available for CentOS latest and you MUST have it ... either install GoAutoDial and then upgrade to SVN (and cluster with PoundTeam Multi-Server manual) or Scratch install.

Or just see if there is another app that will control your fan speed for you. It may be worth your while to find a driver technician to write a quick app just for that. Read the Temp, modify the fan speed based on it.

[ayger]

Thank you all for your prompt replies.

Domedan:
I've tried several modifications , so the "automated" package from HP would be tricked and assume there's Suse SLES installation (changing /etc/issue,exporting versions of several files among others) , but still no luck.
I'll keep trying in my test enviroment, and if i come up with results, i will let all know.
I've just dropped a g4 server, and it seems to work fine without needing to install the sim pack.
On g5's there's no go. Fans and power supplies are working near their maximum limits with no load and same enviroment (my desk) tempature.

williamconley :

Keep in mind that we are talking about proprietary hardware architecture.

I will try to explain as simple as i can.
The only way to access the system monitoring status, is through the vendor agents.
These agents, are working like "man-in-the-middle" with management port (in our case ilo2,something similar with NMI on supermicro servers, and i suppose similar to Dell's management port).During installation, they require specific enviroment (eg kernel version range, specific versions of gcc or other software installed and so on).

There's no direct access to hardware components otherwise.

I assume, for security reasons and avoiding end-user interactions like controlling the fan speed,power consumption,cpu usage, bus speeds and several other actions requiring direct access.There's no source code available, no modifications can be made, all i have is an executable file, which is succesfully installed or.... not.

Anyway, thank you all.

Ayger

[DomeDan]

What file did you download and tried to install?

found these files:
hp-health-9.25-1551.8.sles10.x86_64.rpm
hpasm-8.0.0-173.sles10.x86_64.rpm
did you try those?

and have you updated the BIOS firmware?

My old G3 keeps at 100% fanspeed untill I have installed the hpasm stuff, didnt think newer servers like G5 behaved like that too..

[williamconley]

It's not about security. It's about "too lazy to write new drivers for all OSs". The public community will eventually write them (see DomeDan's links), but someone must actually do the work.

Suddenly I remember why I like Dell servers. LOL

[DomeDan]

ayger: bump, how is it going?

William: My links is to software/drivers written by the vendor still propitiatory stuff unfortunately.
I don't like installing propitiatory software but well well, I really like the hardware, very stable and reliable!

[williamconley]

reliable is subjective. if they do not make their proprietary drivers available for all OSs in a timely fashion ... I don't call that "reliable". but I'm difficult that way.

[joako]

Someone could build in SuSE studio as SLES

Or you can try to install HP Vmware 5.0

[ayger]

found these files:
[removed cause forum replied "your post looks too spammy for a new user, please remove offsite urls"]
and have you updated the BIOS firmware?
My old G3 keeps at 100% fanspeed untill I have installed the hpasm stuff, didnt think newer servers like G5 behaved like that too..

Just to update the issue and mark this thread "as closed"

Latest firmware installed from PSP.Massive firmware upgrades to ilo2,hdd, network cards etc etc.

DomeDan's suggestion did the trick! Thumbs up mate! I really appreciate it!
Installed hpacucli,hpasm v.9.10-22.0.x86_64 and the dual quad core server is more silent comparing it with my desktop!

Someone could build in SuSE studio as SLES

Or you can try to install HP Vmware 5.0

Installing vmware with direct access on my E1 card, is not an option.
I'm not using sip trunks. Just a plain E1.




Cheerz!

[williamconley]

Good postback

[DomeDan]

Awesome! Glad to hear you had it sorted out!