New Hyper-V 2012 R2 install
-
I'm rebuilding one of my VM hosts, moving from ESXi 5.5 to Hyper-V 2012 R2 and thought I'd document my process.
I'm using a HP DL380 GEN8 server.
I made my life a bit simpler by opening a case with HP to help me find the updates - their website is pretty terrible, and past experience has shown me they know exactly where what I want is.
Within 5 mins I was downloading the update DVD for my server.
- *Note: HP Enterprise now requires servers to be under an active support agreement/warranty in order to download these types of updates. *
The tech walked me though using iLo - being a small shop where the servers have always been literally 6 feet away from me, I've never bothered with it before. Well we found out that I didn't have the full license for iLo, so HP gave me a temporary one (I'll be buying one on Monday).
I brought up a Webrower (was forced to IE because .Net, etc wouldn't work correct in FF - WTF?) and logged in. My version of iLo was very out of date (of course, the server was 2 years old and iLo was never used).
After logging in I see this: *this is actually the updated version I didn't save a picture of the older version.
Now I click on Remote Console and see this page:
Click the indicated Launch button which opens another window as seen below:
ignore the Windows stuff, if the server is sitting in the BIOS screen you'll see that. This is just a duplicate of whatever is one the console of the server.
-
Now from the iLo console screen click Virtual Drives from the menu options at the top, click Image File CD_ROM/DVD. Now you'll be presented with a typical explorer window and you can locate and choose your ISO file.
Click Power switch in the menu of the iLo console and choose reset.
During the boot process, press F11 to choose a one time boot process then press 1 to choose to boot from CD-ROM.
The image booted and I choose to use the automatic option to update the hardware in the system. In my case it took about 15 mins. There was a time where I lost the console while iLo was being updated itself, but the webpage stayed connected and gave an indication in the lower right hand corner as to it's update status. After it reached 100% there was a message on screen that the server would now reboot and update iLo and that it could take several mins.After 3 mins I refreshed the page and was presented with the logon screen again. Upon logging into iLo again, I saw the screen shown above. Again I launched the console session and went through the booting from ISO a second time, just to make sure everything did in fact update. This took about 5 mins.
After the server was back up running, I was back in the iLo webpage and the console, I used the Virtual Drive option to mount the Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 ISO and reset the server again. After the typical booting, the system was now booting from the Windows ISO and installation proceeded normally.
I was surprised that Hyper-V installer required a minimum of 128 GB of drive space as noted here next to the yellow triangle:
As you can see I attempted to install Hyper-V into a smaller 40 GB partition, then I was planning on using the rest for VM storage, but since it wanted 128 GB, I just decided to give the whole thing to the
drive.Install finished with no other abnormalities.
-
Most of us know that the vendors always have new drivers to install versus what comes on the installation media of Windows, so I wanted to use the same HP Proliant Service Pack DVD (the HP rep said it had everything for hardware, Windows and Linux) to update Windows.
Upon booting Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 for the first time, I makes you set an Administrator password, which I did then was presented with a blue screen and two command windows.
Using the blue command window I walked through the prompts and change the IP address of both of my NICs, changed the name of the server and installed all Windows updates.
This required two reboots to fully accomplish in my case, your mileage may vary.Now to install the HP drivers. Again using Virtual Drives I again choose the HP Proliant Service Pack DVD ISO. After waiting several seconds for the system to mount it, I used the black command screen to search the ISO (drive
in my case) for an executable. On this ISO it was called Launch_hpsum.bat.A new command window opened which copied several files to a temp directory on the server and started a webserver for you use to to continue the installation. If I wasn't on a core based installation, I assume that a web browser would have been launched, but since I am on a core based install, no GUI, no such luck.
I wondered if the Windows Firewall was enabled or not? So I launched a browser from my local machine, went to the address indicated (of course I substituted the IP address for localhost) and it worked like a charm - Not sure if I'm happy about that or not? But clearly the firewall is either not enabled by default, or the HP software creates a rule for it - that second part seems unlikely.
Upon going to https://IP.Address:63002/index.html?=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx I was presented with:
Hmm.. what am I suppose to use to logon? I used the username and password I setup on the server, Worked like a charm. Now I get installation options.
I choose Localhost Guided Update, then saw:
Choose Automatic and clicked OK.
Clicked OK again, now the system went through updating all of the available Windows drivers. Most of those updated/installed where around iLo, but there was one critical one for me regarding the SAS controller.
When it was finished it gave a prompt to click OK and the server would reboot. Which it did without any issues.Now to get enable management by Hyper-V manager on Windows 10.
-
As of right now, I can't connect Hyper-V Manager on Windows 10 to the Hyper-V Server I just stood up.
It's been suggested that once I join the server to the domain, that this problem will go away.
I guess I'll try that next.
-
Place holder 4
-
OK ever sense I updated the firmware on the hardware on this server the fans have reving up and reving down. about every 30 seconds or so.
I called HPE about it and the first words out of the guys mouth was, what iLo version do you have? I said 2.3 - before I could even get the three completely out of my mouth he was telling me we'd have to down rev it to 2.2 as there is a known issue with 2.3. I'm like OK - Walk me through it, please.
He put me on hold and when he came back told me there was something we could try instead if I could power cycle the server now. I told him I could so he had me change the DipSwitch #6 on the master MOBO dip panel to ON, then power on. The server went through the BIOS screen, then stopped indicating that this switch was flipped and to power down, flip it off, then restart the server.
I did exactly that, and for the 1-2 mins more I had the tech on the phone, the system seemed fine. Unfortunately it didn't last, and it's cycling again. I'm going to call them back and have them walk me through reving down to 2.2.
-
Well - continuing down the fan spin up, spin down saga - Today HP had me send them logs from iLo. Those logs showed that I am using a NIC firmware that they have since pulled (but it was in the service pack DVD ISO - so WTF?). They want me to downgrade the NIC firmware.
Of course, the single install file for NIC firmware is gui based, and even though you can extract the dozen or so files from the installer and run them direct, they don't have instructions for doing so.
So now I'm stuck downloading and old Service Pack DVD ISO so I can boot from that and downgrade my firmware. oh boy!
