Having a HP DL180G6 with a SmartArray P212 equipped, a firmware upgrade of the SmartArray is not that easy. The firmware upgrade comes in SCEXE format, a binary format working somehow on Windows and Linux. On Linux, the tool requires some HP specific applications to be installed. The manual sais, it can be executed from SmartStart Firmware Upgrade CDrom. But that Firmware Upgrade CDrom will not boot with a DL180G6, since only DL300 and higher sophisticated servers are supported.
But there is a way:
- Take the ProLiant Easy Setup CD and build a bootable USB stick of this CD (I used the HP USB Key Utility for Windows to do that)
- Put the SCEXE firmware upgrade file on that USB stick.
- Boot from that USB stick.
- When the HP Utility had been booted, press CTRL-ALT F1 to see the Splash Screen and then ALT-F2 to get a textconsole.
- You find the content of your USB stick on /mnt/usbmedia (or somehow similar, can’t remember).
- Now locate and execute the firmware upgrade file.
- Finished.
Once you know that this is possible, it’s easy.
Update: The EasySetup CD is based upon SLES 10.