CIMC and BIOS round 2 and some other stuff.

So I ended up not doing the upgrade last night due to a late response from TAC since we are in different timezones that puts us two hours apart.  I ended up getting the information I needed and learned that the CIMC has a built in remote KVM and the HUU .ISO file can indeed to everything once you take down the entire system.  Tonight is the big night for the multistep upgrade since I have to go to 1.5(7) but need to step up to that. 

Interesting enough, I have learned more about CIMC in the last week than I have in the last few years.  You just don't touch it that much, and when you do, it isn't for very long.  I feel like they need to make a TAC section just for me so I can be the dedicated CIMC guy since at this point, I could navigate it in my sleep.

For those of you that are new to the blog or didn't read the last blog, I have a customer that has had RAID issues and CIMC issues.  Once I replaced the RAID controller, the ELM VM crapped the bed again.  I now have to upgrade the firmware on the CIMC and BIOS.  If you upgrade one without upgrading the other, you end up with a server that won't boot.  I don't want to wake up tomorrow morning and have to make a 2 hour drive to a super irritated customer, so I prefer to do things the right way the first time around.

Basically, upgrade CIMC, then upgrade the BIOS.  On another note, round 2 of CIPT1 may happen this week.  I been studying my ass off on the finer points that are irrelevant to most day to day operations or in my case, to my job since I don't use some of the stuff.  I think it's worth noting that you can be an expert without knowing everything.  In fact, there is no way you could possible memorize all the material and still have a life.  That's why we have google and cisco support forums that I regularly utilize and participate in.

I guess this post is all over the place but so is my mind.  I figured I would add one final subject while I am here.  Today, I had a service ticket for a customer on CUCM 6...yep 6.  On their particular version as well as a version of 7 an NTP issue occurs on DST changes.  Well half of their phones had the correct time while the other half didn't.  Luckily, it was localized to some old 7940/60 phones sine the 42/62s were fine with the right time.  I took a look at the CUCM and saw that it had the right time, so that verified their NTP was functional.

I took a look at their device pools and noticed they had two set.  One for DST and one called "Workaround DST".  I chuckled a bit as I already knew the problem once I saw that.  The bug applied to this version of CUCM.  I ended up just doing a bulk update through the BAT tool using queries for all 7960s and all 7940s.  Once I pushed the update I viewed the phone screenshot to verify the problem was fixed and the customer was satisfied.

I think it's worth noting that screenshots on phones are super useful when you can't be on-site for one reason or another.  You can essentially view the screen on a webpage.  Keep in mind you can't actually do anything with it, but in this case I could view the timestamp.  If you are wondering on how to do this, here is how:

1. Either assign yourself as a user to that phone or make a test user and assign it to the phone
2. Make sure you associate the device to the end user on the end user page too
3. Grab the IP of the phone, it's a blue link if look at the registrations
4. Type http://x.x.x.x/CGI/Screenshot
5. Enter the credentials of the user you assigned
6. Bam

Keep in mind that 7940s and 60s can act a bit weird and you get some bizarre XML error.  There is a SDK phone tool on Cisco DevNet that gets around this.  You use that tool with the XML text and it generated a .gif for you so you can view the image of the phone.  Below are all the links you need explaining this stuff.

Cisco IP Phone Screenshot Instructions:
https://supportforums.cisco.com/document/45331/how-take-screen-shot-cisco-ip-phone

SDK Tool for the older Gen2 phones:
https://developer.cisco.com/site/ip-phone-services/documentation/index.gsp

Direct Download of the SDK:
https://developer.cisco.com/fileMedia/download/1a95842c-5302-4f2f-b186-78d295987b2e