I just want to say two things:
Dell isn't any better. iDRAC enterprise and all that.
And, these keys are really popular online, like, some people just post them in forums.
I don't know what any of that means but I 100% agree
iLO (HP branding) is a remote access service to a server that allows one to control said server. A completely separate circuit - a really neat thing. One of such controls is a remote console - you can connect to a server miles away as if you had a keyboard and screen attached to it locally. What HP has done was build the functionality, but disable it once the server has booted.
i googled for ILO keys and eventually found one on reddit that worked.
Yeah, Fuck HP
This is the nature of Licensing. Welcome to the party. It sucks no matter what the actual issue is. For instance, it's possible that HP is actually Licensing these features themselves and it's required by their upstream manufacturer of the backplane chip to license each individual user for iLO. You never know with this BS.
You don't own your hardware. You especially don't own your software. I don't know what the FOSS alternative would be unless there was like a libreBootserver with a libreILO type firmware.
I know what you mean and I fully agree.
But.
This is a pathetic thing to do and I do not want anyone to think it is in any shape or form OK, acceptable or tolerable. Hardware is the money maker, not this bullshit. The server cost ~40k at the time, this license bollocks is a few hundred over the years. The inconvenience introduced will not, ever, pay off in the long run.
You're not wrong.
This is normal behavior for all server manufacturers. You get iLO from HPe, iDRAC from Dell and BMC from IBM, all have free modes and licensed modes.
I feel like we need an open source printer, framework one day maybe?
I guess you can always run a cyclade server, slap a free version of Linux on the server to manage the console connections, honestly if your running in a data center you should already be doing that on top of iLO connections anyway.
Also fuck your company for not buying the license. It should be a mandatory purchase. Not that I’m a fan of licensing on this shit but still, if you’re gonna get a server remote mgmt should be part of that cost of purchase.
It shouldn’t even be a mandatory purchase of a license. There shouldn’t be any license needed around the OOB controller, and in the past there never was. You wanted an OOB controller, you paid for the hardware and that was that.
I don't think that's entirely correct depending on what you call the "past", I have an HP server that is about 10-15 years old that I cant use iLO after post because of the same message. They have charged for OOB management for years, but I think it was rolled into support contracts. This server was from an old job and iLO worked when it was dcommed
Also fuck your company for not buying the license.
It's worse than that. It was bought, as I've found out, but never applied. Naturally - lost to the whims of time.
It should be a mandatory purchase. Yes, but my issue is with this requiring the license in the first place. It's just so petty and pathetic. There's no technical barrier getting in the way - it's the bloody suits looking for a payday.
I completely agree that there shouldn’t be all sorts of a la carte expenses and licenses. It’s horrible for the sake of organization, trickle expenses for “renewals” because it turns into a subscription eventually, etc.
At the same time it’s the reality and has been for a long time.
It isn’t just hp that plays this game, but still - fuck hpe.
