Thu, 25 Jul 2013

July 25, 2013

How to move a standalone server to be HMC managed

Just recently I had cause to move a number of standalone systems (power6 and 7) that had never been attached to an HMC to under the control of HMCs. Interestingly enough I could find clear documentation on how to add a completely fresh HMC and on how to deal with older servers but nothing current, so thought I would share what the process ended up being for me.

First we connect the server HMC1 port to the HMC or to the private switch that the HMC is attached to
Of course we make sure that whatever private IP range the HMC is using is not the same as the public IP address for the server

Getting HMC to recognize the server
After a few minutes the server should pop up under servers on the HMC
At this time you can rename the server if you like as the default machinetype-model-serial
The status should show "pending authentication"
Click on this to set the passwords or you can go to operations, change password
You should be prompted to set the password for HMC Access, ASMI  General and ASMI Admin. Write these down somewhere in case you forget them later.
Once it grants access you are ready to move on to the next step which is fixing issues around serial ports and access to the console.

At this point under the server you should see an automatically built LPAR and profile. The servers I cut over only had one LPAR on them so the HMC built an LPAR and profile that owned all resources. You can modify these later if you want.

Process after providing hmc access to server

On HMC go to the server and bring up properties
Under general ensure that "Manufacturing default configuration" is set to false

If it is true then go to 
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=isg3T1010949
and follow the procedure there.

If it is false then we need to clear the vty definitions on the lpar as follows:
We have to do this because the serial ports are usable whent his is a standalone server but they are not if it is HMC managed. Until you take this step you can control the LPAr from the HMC but you won''t get any information on the console.

Login to the LPAR as root
odmdelete -q name=vty0 -o CuDv
odmdelete -q name=vty1 -o CuDv
odmdelete -q name=vty2 -o CuDv
odmdelete -q name=vsa0 -o CuDv
odmdelete -q name=vsa1 -o CuDv
odmdelete -q name=vsa2 -o CuDv
odmdelete -q attribute=syscons -o CuAt
bosboot -ad /dev/ipldevice
sync; sync; sync
savebase
shutdown -r now