HP ILO boot screen resolution and hostname display

usao · 01-21-2012, 10:12 AM

We have multiple HP servers which we use ILO to access the console via a web browser.
We have installed both RHEL 5 and CentOS 6 on these servers.
For some unknown reason, we have a wide variety of boot screen resolutions which attempt to display in the Java console display, some of which are way too large to fit on my physical screen on my Windows desktop.
I have tried editing the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and added "Modes" line, but it doesn't seem to affect the boot screen, which displays the RHEL splash page and login prompts.
Does anyone know how to change that boot/splash screen resolution? I would prefer to fix it at 1024x768 for all the servers.
Also, while im on the topic, the boot/splash screen does not show the hostname, is it possible to get that to display somewhere on the boot/splash screen?
Thanks

fukawi1 · 01-21-2012, 09:03 PM

I have 3 HP DL380 (g2/g3) servers at home.
Personally, i only use iLO for the original installation of the operating system. Since i can mount an ISO remotely and install from there, (saves going under the house to do it).
Once I have the operating system, and ssh installed, i do everything from there (i dont run X on my servers, so thats not an issue for me, but you would be well served in using VNC to handle X based remote control).

That being said, to answer your question, it is most likely the frame buffer causing the problem.
If you are using grub legacy, its as simple as modifying "/boot/grub/menu.lst" and appending "vga=xxx" to the kernel line. Using either the hex or decimal numbers show in this table.

Code:

#  FRAMEBUFFER RESOLUTION SETTINGS
#     +-------------------------------------------------+
#          | 640x480    800x600    1024x768   1280x1024
#      ----+--------------------------------------------
#      256 | 0x301=769  0x303=771  0x305=773   0x307=775
#      32K | 0x310=784  0x313=787  0x316=790   0x319=793
#      64K | 0x311=785  0x314=788  0x317=791   0x31A=794
#      16M | 0x312=786  0x315=789  0x318=792   0x31B=795
#     +-------------------------------------------------+

I am not as familiar with grub 2, but IIRC it can be set in /boot/grub.cfg with

Code:

set gfxpayload=1024x768x32

I dont think iLO is really designed for remote administration on a regular basis, more so it is designed for when SSH/VNC isn't available for whatever reason (firewall rules, accidentally killing ssh, etc)

As for displaying the hostname in grub, this wont ever be enabled by default, and cant be set dynamically, because grub has no idea of what the hostname is. It is possible to modify the boot menu/splash screen images, to include it, but if you change the hostname of the linux system itself, this would require modifying the image again to reflect the change.

usao · 01-22-2012, 12:38 PM

Thanks, ill give this a try.
We use ILO infrequently, most often for going into single-user mode for kernel patches, filesystem/LUN configuration and such.
It's just annoying to have a somewhat random (between different hosts) screen, if/when we need to use it. It's especially anoying when the ILO console is "larger" than my desktop, so that I have to scroll around to get to the menus etc...