Category Archives: Networking

HP Virtual Connect – Upgrade from version 3.30 to 4.41

HP, Networking, , , , , , , , , , ,

Hi,

Only a quick post, but after my last bashing of HP virtual connect. I’ve had to endevour another upgrade for a different customer. This time with two HP chassis that are connected together.

For this customer they are on version 3.30 and need to upgrade to the latest version 4.41.

After speaking with HP support, the suggested upgrade path is;

3.60 / 3.70 / 4.10 / 4.20 / 4.31 / 4.41

For me the each firmware took around 35 to 45 minutes to complete. And you need “Virtual Connect Support Utility 1.11.0” to upgrade to 4.31 and above.

Note: that if you use the vcsu.exe tool and have mutliple flex-10 modules connected together in a domain, the firmware will update all the modules at once, you cannot upgrade just 2 modules of 4, for example.

How to update the Virtual Connect Manager

Note: Please plan downtime for this, as in my case it took everything offline whilst updating both modules.

So to update the Virtual Connect Manager, leave the web interface, as you don’t do it there, you need to download the “Virtual Connect Support Utility”, you can find the latest version here.

To do this, you open up the command interface,

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As you can see this launches a command prompt in the install area of the utility.

1. Type vcsu.exe and enter

2. Type update and enter

3. Enter the IP address of the Onboard Administrator, username and password.

4. Drag your firmware file from its location into the CMD prompt window and this will automatically out the file location in for you.

4. Click through the options until it says “Initializing, please wait… [Step 1 of 2]”

5. When prompted it will tell you its discovered the Virtual Connect domain, enter the username and password for the Virtual Connect Manager

6. Enter yes after confirming the version you are on and version you are going to.

7. Once done it will tell you its completed and where the log files are loaded.

Here is a full screenshot of the process, with the steps highlighted in yellow with green marks for easy identification.

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Things to know about the Virtual Connect Support Utility

it saves everything in your temp location, so where it tells you it’s saved the log, copy the location and open it up

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So it doesn’t just output a file which is the copy of your update session, which in this case is called “vcsu-15044.log”

It saves a copy of your Virtual Connect Manager settings before the upgrade, of which mine was called “vcConfig-8895406-BLE01_vc_domain-201408130822”

And finally there is the Support Info output which can be used by HP support to determine the status of your hardware before and after the firmware update “vcSupportInfo-8895406-BLE01_vc_domain-201408130823”

If you run the “collect” command, then it produces an output to the temp location for the following files

– Session output

– ShowAll of OA

– ShowAll of Virtual Connect Manager

2014-08-13_10-08-11
Regards

Dean

Password Reset on Cisco MDS 9100 Series Fibre Channel Switch

Cisco, Networking, , , , , , ,

My most recent customer engagement, was to re-use some older hardware as vSphere disaster recovery. The kit includes a EMC Clariion SAN, and two Cisco MDS 9124 switches.

The customer didn’t setup these FC switches, and required a password reset. Which I was happy to do for him, until I realised the Cisco article online is slightly wrong. So below are the steps I took to get the job done.

Password Reset/Recovery Steps

First off stick your console cable into the switch,

1. Power Cycle the Switch and keep pressing Ctrl + C until you see;

loader>

2. You then need to find the boot filename, using the “dir” command

loader> dir bootflash:
bootflash:

 12288 lost+found/
 18678784 m9100-s2ek9-kickstart-mz.4.1.3a.bin
 51055100 m9100-s2ek9-mz.4.1.3a.bin
 4798 mts.log

Continue reading Password Reset on Cisco MDS 9100 Series Fibre Channel Switch →

Setting up LACP on Synology NAS and HP Switches

Networking, Storage, , ,

Here I am going through how to setup LACP port trunking for a Synology NAS device using HP Switching.

1. First off get your MAC Addresses of your Synology NAS interfaces you want to configure, these can be found in the DSM web login under Control Panel > Info Center > Network

2015-03-02_11-42-38 Continue reading Setting up LACP on Synology NAS and HP Switches →

Revision notes from VMware Network Virtualization Fundamentals Course

Networking, VMware, , , , , , , ,

VMware released a free course around Network Virtualization Fundamentals, which maps to the first steps on the ladder for all things NSX. It is also recommended by VMware to take the course before taking on the VCA-NV.

I urge anyone looking into NSX to take this course, you can’t argue with the price after all!!! Secondly, although there are many NSX posts online name, Brad Hedlund has some of the best posts in my opinion.

Check the NSX-Link-O-Rama aswell.

And finally, the NSX Compendium over at Network Inferno

Below are my notes I took whilst going through the course.

The Basics
Virtual switch
  • Ports organised into port groups
  • Uplinks connect virtual switch to physical network
  • Connections to support virtual infrastructure

Virtual standard switches – configuration per host, therefore needs to be replicated exactly to all hosts

  • Port groups
  • VMkernel Ports
  • Uplink Ports
  • Policies at virtual switch level can be over-ridden  at port group level
  • VLAN’s set at port group level and VMKernal Port level only
  • No support for things like STP, as virtual switches cannot be connected to one another, nor do they learn MAC addresses.

vsphere-network-standard-switch

Continue reading Revision notes from VMware Network Virtualization Fundamentals Course →

How to produce good documentation – Part 4 – Diagraming a network

General, Networking, , , , ,

So in my last post, I looked at how to record the logical information about your IP addresses and switchport locations, making it easier for troubleshooting in the future.

Now lets tackle the big one, how to produce good documentation when diagraming your network.

For this, I am going to use a real world example of a network I audited, and then made a visio diagram. Personally, I don’t believe this is one of the best visio diagram’s I have produced, however it includes a lot of various parts which I think are useful.

So below, you find the original hand drawn diagram as I was tracing cables and devices, and then the final product.

Note: Unfortunately I do not have the Visio file available for distribution used in this post.

The diagram

original diagramNetwork Diagram

Starting off

Continue reading How to produce good documentation – Part 4 – Diagraming a network →