HP iLO is a great tool to have, remote console access, unfortunately it is sometimes forgotten by engineers and technicians to be configured. Which is a pain when you then need remote access to the ESXi.

So here is how to configure the HP iLO IP address using the ESXCLI via SSH.

1. Turn on your SSH for the host

• Configuration
• Security Profile
• SSH
• Start

2. Open up your SSH connection to your ESXi
3. Navigate to the HP tools location

Cd /opt/hp/tools

4. Copy the HP iLO settings to an XML file.

./hponcfg -w ilo.xml

5. Connect to your ESXi host using WinSCP or similar

• Locate the hp tools location
• Copy the iLO.xml file to your machine

6. Edit your XML file, I’ve highlighted the sections that need changes to be made.

<!-- HPONCFG VERSION = "4.0-13.0" -->
<!-- Generated 11/11/2014 23:37:47 -->
<RIBCL VERSION="2.1">
 <LOGIN USER_LOGIN="Administrator" PASSWORD="password">
  <DIR_INFO MODE="write">
  <MOD_DIR_CONFIG>
    <DIR_AUTHENTICATION_ENABLED VALUE = "N"/>
    <DIR_LOCAL_USER_ACCT VALUE = "Y"/>
    <DIR_SERVER_ADDRESS VALUE = ""/>
    <DIR_SERVER_PORT VALUE = "636"/>
    <DIR_OBJECT_DN VALUE = ""/>
    <DIR_OBJECT_PASSWORD VALUE = ""/>
    <DIR_USER_CONTEXT_1 VALUE = ""/>
    <DIR_USER_CONTEXT_2 VALUE = ""/>
    <DIR_USER_CONTEXT_3 VALUE = ""/>
  </MOD_DIR_CONFIG>
  </DIR_INFO>
  <RIB_INFO MODE="write">
  <MOD_NETWORK_SETTINGS>
    <SPEED_AUTOSELECT VALUE = "Y"/>
    <NIC_SPEED VALUE = "100"/>
    <FULL_DUPLEX VALUE = "N"/>
    <IP_ADDRESS VALUE = "192.168.16.33"/>
    <SUBNET_MASK VALUE = "255.255.255.0"/>
    <GATEWAY_IP_ADDRESS VALUE = "192.168.16.254"/>
    <DNS_NAME VALUE = "ESX01-iLO"/>
    <PRIM_DNS_SERVER value = "192.168.16.1"/>
    <DHCP_ENABLE VALUE = "N"/>   
    <DOMAIN_NAME VALUE = "educ.local"/>
    <DHCP_GATEWAY VALUE = "Y"/>
    <DHCP_DNS_SERVER VALUE = "Y"/>
    <DHCP_STATIC_ROUTE VALUE = "Y"/>
    <DHCP_WINS_SERVER VALUE = "Y"/>
    <REG_WINS_SERVER VALUE = "Y"/>
    <PRIM_WINS_SERVER value = "0.0.0.0"/>
    <STATIC_ROUTE_1 DEST = "0.0.0.0" GATEWAY = "0.0.0.0"/>
    <STATIC_ROUTE_2 DEST = "0.0.0.0" GATEWAY = "0.0.0.0"/>
    <STATIC_ROUTE_3 DEST = "0.0.0.0" GATEWAY = "0.0.0.0"/>
  </MOD_NETWORK_SETTINGS>
  </RIB_INFO>
  <USER_INFO MODE="write">
  </USER_INFO>
 </LOGIN>
</RIBCL>

1. Copy the changed XML file back your host
2. Using your SSH program, write back the file to the HP config

/hponcfg -f ILO.xml

• This will display a successful message, and also list the iLO IP Address

9. And your done, connect to your iLO via your chosen web browser

Regards

Dean

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