What is HPE ILO

HP Integrated Lights-Out

MANAGE AND MONITOR SERVERS FROM ANYWHERE WITH ILO

Imagine consistent insight into the health and operation of your servers. HPE iLO arms you with the tools to manage your servers efficiently, resolve issues quickly, and keep your business running – from anywhere in the world. Featuring the latest innovations in simplified operations, performance, and security, HPE iLO allows you to manage your entire server environment with ease. Upgrade your iLO license for additional functionality, such as graphical remote console, multi-user collaboration, video record/playback, remote management, and much more.

Integrated Lights-Out, or iLO, is a proprietary embedded server management technology by Hewlett-Packard which provides out-of-band management facilities. The physical connection is an Ethernet port that can be found on most Proliant servers and micro servers of the 300 and above series.

ILO has similar functionality to the lights out management (LOM) technology offered by other vendors, for example Sun/Oracle's LOM port, Dell DRAC, the IBM Remote Supervisor Adapter and Cisco CIMC.

HPE ILO features

ILO makes it possible to perform activities on an HP server from a remote location. The ILO card has a separate network connection (and its own IP address) to which one can connect via HTTPS.

Possible options are:

• Reset the server (in case the server doesn't respond anymore via the network card)

• Power-up the server (possible to do this from a remote location, even if the server is shut down)

• Remote system console (in some cases however an 'Advanced license' may be required for some of the utilities to work)

• Mount remote physical CD/DVD drive or image (virtual media), depends on license.

• Access the server's Integrated Management Log (IML)

• Can be manipulated remotely through XML-based Remote Insight Board Command Language (RIBCL)

• Full command-line interface support through RS-232 port (shared with system), though the      inability to enter function keys prevents certain operations

• SSH remote network access to iLO card supporting public key authentication, 1024 bit DSA key at least since iLO 3

• iLO Federation

• Two factor authentication

ILO provides some other utilities virtual power and a remote console. ILO is either embedded on the system board, or available as a PCI card.

Availability  

ILO is embedded or available on some HP ProLiant and Integrity servers.

Prior to ILO, Compaq created several other lights out management products. The original was the Remote Insight Board (RIB), which was available as an EISA or PCI expansion card. RIB was replaced with RILOE (Remote Insight Light-Out Edition), which was only available for PCI. The original RILOE was replaced with RILOE II. HP stopped manufacturing RILOE II in 2006. The final firmware version for RILOE is 2.53(A) dated 9 Mar 2004 and for RILOE II is 1.21 dated 5 July 2006.

For some ProLiant 100 series servers there is a "Lights Out 100" option, which has more limited functionality. The LO100 is a traditional IPMI BMC, and does not share hardware or firmware with ILO. There is also a version of ILO for HP Moonshot systems referred to as ILO Chassis Management which is often abbreviated as ILO CM. The Chassis Management version of ILO was derived from ILO 4.As of June 2018 the most recent Chassis Manager Firmware available is version 1.56 which was released as part of the Moonshot Component Pack 2018.02.0.

Using HP iLO, you can do the following:

• Access a high-performance and secure Integrated Remote Console to the server from anywhere in the  

   World if you have a network connection to the server.

• Use the shared HP iLO Remote Console to collaborate with up to four server administrators.

• Remotely mount high-performance Virtual Media devices to the server.

• Securely and remotely control the power state of the managed server.  

• Implement true Agentless Management with SNMP alerts from HP iLO, regardless of the state of the host server.

• Access Active Health System troubleshooting features through the HP iLO interface.

• Register for HP Insight Remote Support software without installing any drivers or agents.

Active Health System

HP Active Health System provides the following features:

• Combined diagnostics tools/scanners

• Always on, continuous monitoring for increased stability and shorter downtimes

• Rich configuration history

• Health and service alerts

• Easy export and upload to Service and Support

The HP Active Health System monitors and records changes in the server hardware and system configuration.

The Active Health System assists in diagnosing problems and delivering rapid resolution when server failures occur.

The Active Health System collects the following types of data:

• Server model

• Serial number

• Processor model and speed

• Storage capacity and speed

• Memory capacity and speed

• Firmware/BIOS

HP Active Health System does not collect information about Active Health System users' operations, finances, customers, employees, partners, or data center, such as IP addresses, host names, user names, and passwords. HP Active Health System does not parse or change operating system data from third-party error event log activities, such as content created or passed through by the operating system.

  

Integrated Management Log

The IML records hundreds of events and stores them in an easy-to-view form. The IML timestamps each event with 1-minute granularity.

You can view recorded events in the IML in several ways, including the following:

From within HP SIM 

From within operating system-specific IML viewers

         For Windows: IML Viewer
         For Linux: IML Viewer Application
         From within the HP iLO user interface

   Versions

There have been multiple generations of ILO, each generation noted by a single digit number ("iLO 2").Some generations of ILO are segmented into different editions, based on what features are licensed. iLO includes updatable firmware, for which HP periodically releases new versions.

Name	Servers	SW & FW	Latest Firmware
iLO	ProLiant G2, G3, G4, and G6 servers, model numbers under 300	support	1.96 released 30 April 2014
iLO 2	ProLiant G5 and G6 servers, model numbers 300 and higher	support	2.33 released 30 March 2018
iLO 3	ProLiant G7 servers	support	1.91 released 20 November 2018
iLO 4	ProLiant Gen8 and Gen9 servers	support	2.72 released 20 December 2019
iLO 5	ProLiant Gen10 servers	support	2.10 released 20 December 2019