A bane of any system administrator's existence is the constant stream of firmware updates to fix various bugs and issues that occur. One of these HBA Firmware updates is a fairly common issue where a new LUN or Target is not being discovered without a reboot. With Emulex there is a set of tools called the HBAanywhere that can be installed onto ESX Classic. Then you can perform an Emulex HBA Firmware upgrade without having to reboot the ESX Host.

Example script:

cd /usr/sbin/hbanywhere

./hbacmd listhbas

./hbacmd download 00:00:01:02:03:04:05 zd282a4.all

./hbacmd hbaattributes 00:00:01:02:03:04:05

With this you have just updated the firmware to 2.82a4 on an LPe11000-M4 card.

With ESXi it isn't that easy since hbacmd isn't available. The solution I came up with is to create a bootable WinPE CD with the Emulex Tools and firmware available on it. Then all you have to do is boot off this CD and you will be able to update your 10G CNA or your Emulex LPe12000 HBAs.

This script expects you to have the Windows AIK installed locally. Just update this script to point at the appropriate locations of the listed files.

CustomEmulexWinPE.cmd - Run this to create a bootable ISO that will install the Emulex WinPE utilities & drivers and then attempt to upgrade the 10G CNA & LPe12000 cards in the system. 

call "C:Program FilesWindows AIKToolsPEToolspesetenv.cmd"


call copype x86 EmulexWinPE


imagex /mountrw Winpe.wim 1 mount


mkdir mountEmulex

xcopy "setupElxAll-x86.exe" mountEmulex

xcopy /s "Firmware" mountEmulex

del mountWindowsSystem32startnet.cmd

xcopy "startnet.cmd" mountWindowsSystem32startnet.cmd


peimg /prep mountWindows

imagex /unmount mount /commit

copy winpe.wim ISOsourcesboot.wim


oscdimg -n -betfsboot.com ISO EmulexWinPE.iso

startnet.cmd - This runs on boot and will attempt to update the 10G CNA & the Emulex LPe12000 cards in the system. 

wpeinit


EmulexsetupElxAll-x86.exe /q

cd "Program FilesEmulexUtilelxApp"


winlpcfg download a=lpe12000-m8 i=emulexlpe12000ud111a5.all

winlpcfg download a=lpe12000-m8 i=emulexlpe12000ub202a2.prg


winlpcfg download n=1 i=emulexoce10102s1462001.ufi

winlpcfg download n=2 i=emulexoce10102s1462001.ufi

winlpcfg download n=3 i=emulexoce10102s1462001.ufi

winlpcfg download n=4 i=emulexoce10102s1462001.ufi


winlpcfg listhba

Once this script is done running you'll have a EmulexWinPE.iso that you can mount and boot off of. It will automatically run and upgrade the firmware of the Emulex devices.

This basic setup should allow you to do anything scripting wise you need to do in a Windows environment to update the hardware configuration or run various diagnostics tests outside of ESXi.

Download Locations:
setupElxAll-x86.exe
Windows AIK
Emulex Firmware - Download as needed and update the location you copy it to your WinPE ISO file in the Startnet.cmd and in the CustomEmulexWinPE.cmd.