The iLO interface on one of our servers complete broke and we had no way of accessing it, and it wasn’t updating through the HP SPP media. Fortunately I was able to update it through SSH.

However, because the firmware on the iLO interface was so old, it needed to be upgraded to an earlier version first before updating to the latest. This is documented on the HP Support Centre.

Download a iLO3 1.2x firmware. It will come with the filename ilo3_12x.bin, with x being the minor version number. Upload the file to a web server that can be accessed by the iLO interface. Now, open a SSH session and connect to the iLO IP address. Run the following commands, replacing webserver with your web server FQDN/IP and the filename with the file you downloaded:

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cd map1/firmware1
load -source http://webserver/ilo3_12x.bin

The iLO will now update and reboot, disconnecting you from SSH in the process. Once it’s back up, it will be upgraded and ready for the final upgrade through the HP SPP.