Find The BIOS Version Of An ESX Host
Nirma Hardgrove
A while back I needed to confirm what level of BIOS firmware a bunch of ESX hosts were at. Unfortunately I ran out of time to look properly, but today I discovered how to do it whilst looking through the VMware SDK for something else. Turns out it is very simple:
Well. for running a good and uniform infra. you must update the server bios/firmware version of all the hosts in to similiar level.This is the best practice for installing/managing/updating the vsphere.
I'm trying to make sure that I have the correct BIOS versions on a series of HP Proliant servers running ESXi. I would like to use PowerCLI to return the BIOS Major Release and BIOS Minor Release information for each host.
I'm a big fan of your work. I had an idea on using this code to verify that all hosts in a cluster had the same BIOS version. I'm running into a slight problem though, and wanted to see if you could help. I have two 8 node clusters made up of identical hardware. When running this code against those 16 boxes in vCenter, only 3 of them return Bios Version info. However, if I connect to each host directly the Bios Version is available. Also, when looking at the 'Hardware Status' tab all hosts are reporting the same version. Any ideas on how I could troubleshoot this?
It worked fine if I would connect-viserver to the individual ESXi hosts, but when pointing at vCenter it only worked for 3 of 16 hosts. After a little bit of Googling, I think I found someone else who has encountered this problem -- =VI_Toolkit_(PowerShell)
That page has a "ESX Inventory Getter" script that checks for the Hardware.BiosInfo value and uses it if available. However, it will fail to a section that parses the Runtime.HealthSystemRuntime.SystemHealthInfo.NumericSensorInfo information if needed. I switched to just the Runtime.HealthSystemRuntime.SystemHealthInfo.NumericSensorInfo section and can now get the BIOS values for all 16 hosts. The code isn't as clean as what you provided, but appears to work on all my hosts:
A few weeks ago I updated the BIOS on several Dell R810 servers running ESXi 4.1U1. After applying the update I disabled the C-States and C1E settings as described here: -esxi-psod-on-dell-server/. Once I had all my updates completed, I wanted to validate that each host was reporting the latest BIOS version. A quick search of the PowerCLI forums turned up this article where @LucD had already provided the required code
I want to know that if have Cluster with 6 host(Same Model and Vendor - eg - Dell PowerEdge640) and i got critical health issue & due to this we have Upgrade iDRAC & Bios version in 1 host with help of dell support So we can say that now not all the host in the cluster are running with same BIOS version. As i am using ESXI-6.7( VMWare) in all 6 host in cluster
On Linux systems (AHV is Linux KVM based hypervisor) demidecode -t bios is the command to retrieve BIOS information without going into IPMI or rebooting host. In my example, I will leverage allssh command available on every CVM in the cluster.
You can remove the host firmware package, but if the service profile is bound to an updating service profile template, if you re-bind the service profile to the template, it will change the firmware back.
We want following hardware information on servers running Citrix Hypervisor.
Are these available via xe or Xen API? Vmware vCenter provides these via SDK API as well as web browser GUI.
Ssh connections are sometimes prohibited on production environment. So, we prefer xmlrpc/json API.
We know some CPU and memory information is available via host-cpu-info and host-param-list but not enough.
The IP address or hostname of the server on which the CIMC firmware installation file resides. Depending on the setting in the Install CIMC Firmware from drop-down list, the name of the field may vary.
The IP address or hostname of the server on which the BIOS firmware installation file resides. Depending on the setting in the Install BIOS Firmware from drop-down list, the name of the field may vary.
As mentioned, upgrading the ESXi host through the vSphere Update Manager worked like a charm. But before that, I booted the server remotely with the Service Pack for ProLiant ISO image to upgrade the BIOS and firmware of that server. Also, that went very well and. As there are two ESXi hosts at this location, we had shared storage available and we were able to move the VMs from one host to the other without further issues. One host placed into maintenance mode, upgrade, remove from maintenance mode, and the same for the second server. That was the idea.
But unfortunately, the gods of IT had something different in mind. After upgrading the first host, we tried to move the VMs back to this host to prepare the upgrade for the second host. Well, some VMs were able to be moved there, some were not. But why?
Obviously, the vMotion failed because some CPU features are different between the first (the already updated) and the second host. But wait, the two servers are the same model, with the same hardware configuration? How can that be?
Hi matt,
i am getting the below error and we are using esxi6.5 version . please help us to get report.
PowerCLI C:\Users\ljonnala\Desktop\powercli> .\hostversion.ps1
PowerCLI C:\Users\ljonnala\Desktop\powercli> disconnect-viserver
I have combed through Resource Manager and through the tables and cannot find anything that has a clear Dell BIOS version like A14. The closest I found was INV_SW_BIOS_ELEMENT, but it has crazy values in it. Does anyone know if I can query the BIOS versions of my computers through Altiris?
Note: If you add a TPM 2.0 chip to an ESXi host that is already managed by a vCenter Server, you must first disconnect the host, then reconnect it. See vCenter Server and Host Management documentation for information about disconnecting and reconnecting hosts.
I am building a deployment plan to upgrade my virtual hosts to a newer version of ESXi. I know I need to check BIOS versions and update where needed before deployment of ESXi but are there any other firmware objects I would need to upgrade as well?
For NetApp Hybrid Cloud Control UI or API upgrades, your ESXi host will be automatically placed in maintenance mode during the upgrade process if you have the DRS feature and required licensing. The node will be rebooted and after the upgrade process is complete, the ESXi host will be taken out of maintenance mode. For USB and BMC UI options, you will need to place the ESXi host in maintenance mode manually, as described in each procedure.
You must perform the sequential steps to load the compute firmware bundle and reboot the node to the compute firmware bundle to ensure that the upgrade is successful. The compute firmware bundle should be located on the system or virtual machine (VM) hosting the web browser. Verify that you have downloaded the compute firmware bundle before you start the process.
If you placed the node in maintenance mode, after the node boots to ESXi, right-click the host (compute node) name, and select Maintenance Mode > Exit Maintenance Mode, and migrate the VMs back to the host.
Before BIOS update and with BIOS Setting Dell Wyse P25/P45 BIOS Access is set to Enabled, the Wyse endpoint can see Pre-POST display from the host: Dell splash screen, Boot Options and the ability to access BIOS configuration (F2), Lifecycle Controller (F10) and Boot Menu (F12) options. No Pre-POST display is available on the endpoint, after updating the Precision host to the latest BIOS. The endpoint only receives video from the host once POST is complete -> host is booting into an operating system (Windows, Linux, and so on).
Today i was asked to confirm the BIOS version of all the hosts in a customers estates to allow them to plan an upgrade. Initially they had planned to check each iLO individually which would have been extremely time consuming, fortunately, there is a quick PowerCLI method:
In recent years he has been working in a variety of enviroments varying in scale from 3 hosts up to 10,000 and ESXi version from 4.5 up to 6.7.
He is attempting to help clients leverage automation via PowerCLI to empower their engineers and reduce time taken for deployments and daily robotic tasks.
Older Sun Blade X6220 servers might have a version of the LSI 1068E SAS host bus adapter hardware that is incompatible with the Sun Blade 6000 Disk Module. Many older server blades have been upgraded to the newer 1068E controller, however, so you must check each older server that you intend to use with the disk blade.
To upgrade your x86 server blade or host bus adapter firmware, use SIA. Each server blade has its own version of the SIA. To obtain an ISO CD-ROM image of the most recent SIA for each of your server blades go to:
Note - At the release of this document, there is currently no support for using the Common Array Manager to upgrade disk module and SAS-NEM firmware to a level that supports SAS-2. For more information on upgrading disk module and SAS-NEM firmware to a level for SAS-2 host support, see Appendix C, Upgrading the Disk Module to Allow a SAS-2 Compatible Server Blade in the Chassis.
In the meantime, you can also find the system serial number at /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/product_serial. ...Requires root to read, but many of the files in /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/ are readable by any user.
"They might look at the kernel of the operating system, but they don't go and dig that deep," Ionescu said. "[We are releasing] a new feature that provides visibility into firmware of various systems out there. What we're seeing increasingly [is that] these attackers are finding ways to bypass today's solutions by going to the firmware level, where there's no visibility or very little visibility. We wanted to build something to see what's going on behind the scenes."
"We partnered with Dell so that we will not just have the visibility, but actually understand if what we're seeing is the correct set of firmware images and configuration settings that we'd expect to find, to make sure that no one has tampered with those parts of the system, that there hasn't been a supply chain attacker in the mix and to provide customers with the ability to know that these are the reference measurements of their firmware components that the vendor expects to essentially have," he said.
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