Blade pending actions - methods other than using GUI

igucs_support · ‎05-23-2012

Hi All,

We run a number of UCS pods of Windows Server and RHEL Linux B200 M2/B230 M2 Blade hosts on 1.4 (3m) & 2.0(2q) firmware.

We do patching runs quite regularly via a scheduled job on each blade server.

It seems that a simple reboot does not trigger a blades to pick up pending actions ( EG. Firmware update )

We would like to run a command inside the OS that can trigger reboot to pick up pending actions.

Does anyone know of an IPMI command or method other than using the UCSM GUI so that a blade will reboot and pick up it's pending actions ?

Rob.

David McFarland · ‎05-23-2012

Rob,

Unfortunately, UCSM pending actions must be acknowledged via UCSM to proceed. An OS reboot will not notify UCSM to perform a UCSM pending action.

The reasons are various.

1) An OS reboot can happen at any time, kernel panic for example, not necessarily an end user action. Firmware upgrades were designed to be under active control. that is, someone is there to make sure it happens and upgrades without issue and provide immediate corrective action

2) For some firmware e.g. (BIOS on a M1/M2), there is no backup copy on the end device. The firmware is loaded from the UCSM repository and activated when initiated from UCSM.

3) It is technically possible to write a reboot wrapper or powershell script to query UCSM and initiate pending actions, but, you'd have to modify every server. These would be initiated in lieu of the normal reboot procedure

4) This is the current upgrade architecture

5) It is something I've asked for since about day -1

I know it's not what you wanted to hear. Within CiscoIT, additional operational procedures have been aded to notify the server/application teams when there is a pending UCSM action and to ensure they perform a UCSM acknowledgment during or at the conculsion of their outage activities. I know this is not ideal.

Dave

Zaira Vega · ‎05-23-2012

Rob,

In addition to what Dave said, my understanding is that you have to click on the Pending Activity icon, check the boxes under Reboot, and click Ok, so in that way it will proceed with the action(s).It's not the same to just reboot the server normally.