How to generate ADU report on HP ProLiant server running Esxi 5.x or 6.0

As most of us would be aware, whenever we call to HP support regarding drive, array controller battery etc related issues, the first this they ask for is Array Diagnostic Utility aka ADU report. HP offers customized installation ISOs for ESXi 5.x, 6.0 that include drivers for HP specific hardware, their Offline Bundles for hardware monitoring and useful tools like hpssacli /hpacucli for managing SmartArray adapters, it is typically little behind tthe current stable version from VMware so you might download and use VMware provided latest stable ISO image to install the esxi on host.

If you used the HP provided Esxi image then hp drivers and other management utilities would be already there. If you didn’t use the HP provided Esxi image initially then download and install the respective HP ESXi Utilities Offline Bundle for Esxi 5.1 or Esxi 5.5 version.
To generate ADU report you need either HP Array Controller CLI: HPACUCLI (HP ProLiant G9 server doesn’t support this utility) or HPSSACLI (*this utility replace HPCUCLI in version 5.5 and later).

We can use HPSSACLI command same like HPACUCLI to get the detailed configuration information for the SmartArray controller.  As per the *HP VMware Utilities User Guide, “The HPSSACLI utility supports HP ProLiant 300/500/700 and Blade servers with integrated SmartArray controllers and option controllers. The HPSSACLI application contains the ability to generate a diagnostic report of the system and its Smart Array storage configuration”.

To generate and save the ADU report, follow these steps (syntax is same for both commands, hpssacli/hpcucli),

1.  Connect to the host from console or using Putty over SSH, and browse to the /opt/hp directory (***just to see what hp tools are available there otherwise you can directly run the command)

2.  Now run below command,

/opt/hp # esxcli hpssacli cmd –q “controller all show status” this command will show you the available controllers, 

*or

    

3. Now run the following command to generate an array configuration report,             

 /opt/hp # esxcli hpssacli cmd –q “controller slot=0  show config detail”

To save the report, export it using the switch >> ,

/opt/hp # esxcli hpssacli cmd –q “controller slot=0  show config detail” >>/tmp/ADUreport.txt

This report will show you most of the Array controller related information and you can download and submit it to HP support as an alternative of Array Diagnostic Utility report (As I didn't have hpcucli installed so this is what suggested by one of hp TSE).

To Generate detailed ADU report using HPACUCLI: If hpcucli is not already installed on host then first download the hpcucli offline bundle and upload it to /tmp or any other directory (using an ftp client tool like winscp). I have downloaded hpacucli-9.40-12.0.vib from given link and uploaded it to /tmp directory. Now to install it, run the following command,

#esxcli software vib install –f –v /tmp/ hpacucli-9.40-12.0.vib

Once it is installed, type the below command to make it executable

/opt/hp/hpacucli/bin # ./hpacucli

Now Execute the following command to save the ADU report on the /tmp directory

#ctrl all diag file=/tmp/Noor2122_ADUreport.zip ris=on xml=on zip=on

this will generate and save the ADU report to the /tmp directory as Noor2122_ADUreport.zip. Now you can download and send this report to HP support for further analysis.

Useful links: Software Delivery Repository - vibsdepot

HP Smart Array CLI Commands on ESXi

That's it... :)