When the command RESET SERVER [bay number]is issued in HP Onboard Administrator Command Line Interface, the blade server which is installed in the corresponding bay will be reset. This is same as you are physically removing the blade server from your HP c-Class enclosure and re-seating it at the same slot. This command will be a life saver if there is no technician available at the data center and you are working from a remote location, or even when you do not want to get up from your chair and physically remove the blade from the enclosure! Lazy!!

NOTE: HP OA firmware 1.30 and later support the RESET SERVER command  and it will permit to cut power to HP Blade server for about 1-3 seconds.

In order to run this command, first you need to open the Onboard Administrator Command Line. Onboard Administrator supports SSH and Telnet protocol. In order to connect to Onboard Administrator, you need to use some tool. Here, I will use a tool called Putty and connect to the Onboard Administrator over SSH protocol. Putty is a simple tool which can be used to connect devices over telnet, SSH and Serial interfaces.

NOTE: You can use any tool or utility which would allow you to connect using SSH or Telnet. My favorite is Putty and it can be downloaded from here.

Once you launch Putty, enter the IP address of Onboard Administrator (here my IP is 110.12.32.2), under Connection Type, select SSH. Then click on Open button.

Once you click Open button, you will receive a black window as shown below.

Enter the username of Onboard Administrator here. My OA user name is Administrator.

Enter the password of Onboard Administrator. Once you enter the password, press Enter key.

Now you are at the OA Command Line screen. You can start entering commands here.

How to Reset a Blade Server using Command Line Interface:

Here, we will learn how to reset a server bay by momentarily removing all power to the blade. When you invoke the RESET SERVER command, it will completely Power OFF the blade slot and turns back ON after 1-3 seconds.

As we have discussed above, we can use the command ‘RESET SERVER’ to reset the HP Blade Server. Unfortunately, I could not find this command listed in HP BladeSystem Onboard Administrator Command Line Interface User Guide (Version 4.20), but when I tried this command, it works. I am not sure why the command was missing in user guide.

When we run the ‘RESET SERVER‘ command, the blade server will lose the power momentarily as the e-fuse (also called as e-Fuse, Efuse or EFUSE) is tripped and reset. Please Use this command with caution as this will result in any activity on the server operating system being lost. Let us look at the syntax of ‘RESET’command:

RESET SERVER [Bay Number]

Now I am going to reset a HP c-Class blade server which is populated in bay number 2 of the enclosure. To execute the command, first you need to login HP OA CLI (connect via Telnet of SSH) and type the below provided command and Press Enter key. The command which needs to be executed at the HP Onboard Administrator CLI will be:

RESET SERVER 2

You may refer the below provided screenshot to understand better.

Once you execute RESET SERVER command, you will receive a warning as shown below:

WARNING: Resetting the server trips its E-Fuse. This causes all power to be momentarily removed from the server. This command should only be used when physical access to the server is unavailable, and the server must be removed and reinserted.

Any disk operations on direct attached storage devices will be affected. I/O will be interrupted on any direct attached I/O devices. Entering anything other than ‘YES’ will result in the command not executing.

Do you want to continue ?

Type YES at the prompt and press Enter key on your keyboard. Now you will receive a message statingSuccessfully reset the E-Fuse for device bay 2.

Now you have successfully  reset the blade server which was installed in Bay number 2 of the HP c-Class enclosure. What do you think about our articles?  leave a comment if this article is helpful to you!