ILO is in a flash recovery state

http://saltwetbytes.wordpress.com/2007/07/17/the-ilo-firmware-is-in-a-network-flash-recovery-state/

My team mate handed over an issue with the HP iLO on a DL380. When trying to browse to the iLO web page, he got the following error:

The iLO firmware is in a network flash recovery state.
Refer to the iLO network flash recovery under the trouble shooting section in the iLO users guide.

The first thing as recommended is to try pulling out the cables in the server and see it the iLO recovers. No such luck, which is why my team mate passed it on to me!

Anyway, did a quick search on the internet and found the solution. I am sure this can be found in the iLO troubleshooting manual, but if google did not find it, it must be hidden quite deep.

You can perform a flash recovery via FTP to the iLO (assuming you can still ping the iLO).

1. Logon to the iLO via FTP
2. Logon using the flash recovery  credentials
3. put  the  iLO  bin
4. iLO will  reset  (and  hopefully recover after that!)

Here is a sample  of what you might do:

FTP 10.198.2.5

login: flash

password: recovery

put c:\temp\ilo189.bin

A great blog post which helped me last week fixing a problem with one of our test DL380 G3’s.

In that case upgrading or even using the same firmware didn’t seem to work, I had to download 1.55 (an older version) and upload that to fix it. I have found that shutting the server down for 30 seconds can also help with these errors, but flashing the firmware online using the ftp command above is a quick win without causing downtime to the server.

– updated – Also a quick note, I have found this error to happen if you perform an ilo reset, or click network settings and apply, in both cases using the ftp to recover and re-apply the flash worked without bringing down the server.  Try the same version of the firmware that you were running before, and if that doesn’t work, I normally try a newer version (the latest) and one below, if no success, 1.55 seemed to work great. The versions for ILO2/ILO3 will be different but the concepts the same – note, I haven’t actually tested it though so if in doubt ask HP or your service provider.

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