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HP procurve

HP procurve, which I think was later just HP enterprise, makes a tasty suite of mostly bulletproof switches and routers.

  1. You can either use web interface or command line, but modern browsers puke when they try to login to the Java thing in the management interface, so I might post a workaround, but you also may find yourself just using a USB/serial cable and doing it in a terminal, which I will describe below.
  2. Hook up a serial -> RJ-45 (ethernet looking thing) cable (they’re usually blue and flat) to the console port on the left front of the unit by the LED’s, then plug the other end into a serial -> USB adapter, mine is a Tripp-Lite Keyspan USA-19HS, which seems to work well with my MacBook Pro. YMMV.
  3. Open a terminal. Then do ls /dev/tty*You should see a listing in there for something like /dev/tty.USAkeyspanA.19H.1, or something that doesn’t look like any of the rest of them, that’s the connection you want
  4. type screen /dev/tty.USAKeyspan.19H.1 and you should get a boot screen prompt saying to “hit enter twice to start”
  5. Obviously, hit enter twice 🙂 . Then if you type it will take you to a menu where you can set the management IP and your password, which you should do at a minimum
  6. Now you should be able to hook a regular ethernet cable to port 1 and login via a browser, or continue to configure other stuff via the command line interface (CLI), by typing
    and setting stuff up like VLAN’s, etc.

upgrade the firmware

You’ll have to have a tftp server somewhere, which is annoying (but not impossible, see howto’s elsewhere), but it’s a simple server/client thing that switches and routers like for backing up and upgrading firmware. There’s a good howto here, but I’ll summarize below:

show version
show flash

make sure the version you downloaded is later than the one already on there. Then copy your downloaded version into your tftp server folder so your router can access it. Now we copy it TO your router, but first, we make a backup of the current version:

copy flash tftp 192.168.1.101 R_11_07.swi

Now copy the one FROM your tftp server TO the router like:

copy tftp flash 192.168.1.101 R_11_25.swi primary
The Primary OS Image will be deleted, continue [y/n]?  y
Validating and Writing System Software to FLASH...

Now check to see if you have the new software on there:

show version

If that looks good, reboot the router into the new firmware:

reload
Device will be rebooted, do you want to continue [y/n]?  y