Installing ProLiant Linux drivers/RPMs with HP SUM

[#1]

HP uses a management feature called HP SUM (Smart Update Manager) to install (SUM). 

HP SUM provides a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and a command-line, scriptable interface for deploying Linux ProLiant Support Packs (PSP) to target servers. HP SUM discovers and displays all components that are available for installation on the local system.

HP SUM allows administrators to choose only the components that they want to install. The default within HP SUM is to install all available components. Additionally, the HP SUM utility enables software deployment for multiple HP ProLiant servers from a single GUI.

HP SUM Facts:

• HP SUM enables support for RPM files.
• HP SUM uses native Linux RPMs, which means that HP SUM will allow updated RPMs to be added to the files provided with the Linux PSPs and deployed. This provides additional flexibility for Linux users as the need to modify the Linux PSPs to support later releases of key software is no longer required.
• HP SUM now allows users to deploy Linux RPMs both locally on a server and remotely to multiple servers (up to 29 concurrently). As part of the new remote RPM deployment support, HP SUM is able to deploy to target servers running different versions and distributions. This means it is not a requirement that the local system and the remote servers be running the same version or kernel of a Linux distribution in order to be updated.
• As part of the ability of HP SUM to deploy RPMs remotely, it is able to build source RPMs included in the Linux PSPs on the local system and deploy these pre-built RPMs to remote servers that are running the same kernel as the local system. This ability allows the Linux user to install the Linux build tools only on the system running HP SUM and removes the requirement that the Linux build tools are installed on every server where the Linux PSP is to be deployed.
• HP SUM allows users to remove RPMs that are not needed from the Linux PSP and deploy the portions the user desires to be deployed.
• HP SUM uses the built-in dependencies in the RPMs themselves, which allows HP SUM to always be able to leverage newer dependencies in new RPMs without the need to update the version of HP SUM used.
• HP SUM allows firmware and RPMs to be deployed simultaneously. This simplifies the system software maintenance for Linux users and reduces the need to reboot a server after deploying firmware and software to a single instance.
• HP SUM supports the build and deployment of kmod and kmp kernel driver modules for NICs. It now provides Linux standard build support for NIC drivers.
• HP SUM is included with the Linux PSPs and is tested and supported with the combination of RPMs that make up each Linux PSP release.

Individual component installation and Repositories

Because of different customer experience levels and varying types of systems software maintenance operations, HP provides options for individual RPMs which can be selected from the PSP or default selected as a set, individually obtained from hp.com through Download and Support and from the externalized yum repository individually or as a set.

• Administrators also have the option to use the current procedure to deploy the Linux components.
• Administrators will still be able to download individual RPMs and do scripted installs.
• The RPMs have been repackaged to be able to stand on their own, so administrators can individually download them and install them through any normal deployment tools that are able to handle RPMs.
• The yum command will install every RPM explicitly listed on the command line.
• HP will maintain repositories on hp.com that contain all the components for each release of the PSP

Additional information

The ability to pull the latest firmware updates while also installing RPMs is supported.  More information on HP SUM and Linux PSPs can be found here.

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[#2]

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[#3]

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