C220 M3 HUU black logo screen

[autumnwalker]

Hi All,

Hoping you can help me with an issue I'm having with my new (to me) C220 M3's. I'm trying to use the Host Upgrade Utility (HUU) to upgrade the firmware on my servers. CIMC is both at 1.5(4e). Following the recommended upgrade path I've pulled down 2.0(4c) to start. I've mounted the .iso via virtual media (CIFS) and booted from it. The linux kernel loads and I'm presented with a black screen with Cisco logo and "Cisco UCS Host Upgrade Utility". There is a circular loading indicator which completes and then the screen stays black (with logo and text). It has been this way for over 1.5 hours now. 

Is there something I should be doing at this point? Do I need to be more patient? Is it not working?

Thanks!

[neilmart]

Hello,

Yes, patience is key on this one! However, the longest I have had to wait is barely over an hour.  I know the HUU can be sensitive to where you are mounting iso in respective to where the server is, physically. If the server is remote and you are using a VPN to reach it, then you may want to get the iso on a jump server that is physically closer to the rack server. 

Best Regards,

Neil M.

[autumnwalker]

Thanks Neil! Currently the iso is mounted as virtual media via CIFS. The server hosting the iso is on the same switch / subnet as the C220.

I am connected via VPN using vKVM, but the iso host / C220 are physically connected by a switch in the rack.

[Kirk J]

The HUU has a max load timeout which I am surprised you didn't hit.

There may be others but the latest version of the RUFUS usb bootmaker will create a bootable USB stick with the HUU on it, if you get too many timeouts.

Like Neil says,,, you really want to have a jump server in the same local network as your CIMC is connected to, and run the CIMC web browser and vKVM session with mounted ISO from within that.

Under your current situation,,, you would be better off with a copy of the ISO on your local workstation.  Your current situation as described is Local PC <WAN>ISO location<WAN>Local PC<WAN>CIMC

The ISO is having to traverse the VPN 2x under your current setup.

Kirk...

[autumnwalker]

Kirk! I wanted to create a bootable USB from the start to do this, but I read all sorts of issues, that it wouldn't work, workarounds with Python scripts. RUFUS works now?
I might have misunderstood Neil - I thought he meant a jump server with the ISO on it. I could spin up a VM on another host in the local network to jump to CIMC / vKVM on.

[Kirk J]

Originally, the 2.0 and later HUUs had issues with most of the USB bootmakers including RUFUS.

However, in last year or so, the current version of RUFUS was working fine for later versions (i.e. 2.x ,3.x HUU) on M4s.

Haven't tried it on M3s but would expect it to work.

It is possible to setup a local CIFS or NFS share with what is called CIMC mounted virtual media, but the version you are currently on may not support that, and is a lot more work then simply using a local jump server that both has the ISO and the web session/vKVM with the CIMC.

Kirk...

[autumnwalker]

I tried creating bootable media with RUFUS in both ISO and DD mode; both result in the 906 error: "Firmware copy has failed (Error Code: 906)". 

Screenshot attached.

[autumnwalker]

Looks like it just timed out and gave me an error.

!! ERROR: Copy of squashfs image to RAM failed. Checksum Mismatch. Re-Connect and Re-Try Boot !!

Image attached.

I validated the MD5 checksum - it's correct.

[autumnwalker]

I've been able to successfully update using vKVM virtual media method.