HP System Management Homepage (a.k.a HP SMH) is a System management software available for HP Proliant and Blade Servers. System Management Homepage (SMH) allows users to effectively manage their servers. The System Management Homepage is a web-based tool which simplifies the management of individual HP Servers. In this article, we will discuss how to Install and configure System Management Homepage on your HP Server.

Before I go ahead and start the System Management Homepage Installation, we will need to discuss about the various components of SMH which needs to be installed on your Server. For SMH to work properly on your server, you will need HP Insight Management Agents (Called as HP agents), you also need to install SNMP on your server Operating System. SNMP protocol must be installed, enabled  and configured so that HP Management Agents can communicate to the HP SMH application.

HP SMH is a framework or a dashboard where it can show the information provided by the HP Insight management Agents (Or HP Agents). HP agents basically collects all the hardware and software information from your Server. Using the SNMP protocol, HP Agents will send all the collected data to the SMHapplication installed on your Server. SMH receives all the data provided by the agents and shows it in the SMH window.

HP SMH and HP HP Insight Management Agents uses SNMP protocol for communication. SNMP is part of Windows Operating system and it needs to be installed separately.  We can install SNMP in Windows 2003 from Add/Remove programs applet and for Windows 2008, we can use Programs and Features applet in Windows control panel.

In short, you need all three components (SMH, SNMP and Agents) for the SMH to work. If any one of the components is missing, you will be presented with a blank SMH window. When all three components are installed and configured, you can access HP System Management Homepage of the server using a web-browser at https://127.0.0.1:2381 or https://localhost:2381

Let us check the steps we need to follow to install and configure System Management Homepage on your HP Server.

Steps to Follow:

1. Download HP System Management Homepage and Insight Management Agents from HP.com.
2. Install HP System Management Homepage on your HP Server.
3. Check whether SNMP service is installed in Windows 2003, 2008 or 2011 Operating System.
4. Install HP Insight Management Agents in Windows Operating System.
5. Configure SNMP Service in Windows Operating System.

Download HP SMH and Agents from HP.com:

HP System Management Homepage and HP Insight Management Agents are available as a downloadable files from HP driver download page of your Server.  You can find these two files under the Software – System Management section in the driver download page.

Please follow below said steps to download both SMH and Agents.

1. Open www.hp.com, and click on Support & Drivers link.
2. Search with your HP Server Model number (Example: DL380 G7).
3. Go to Driver Download page of your Server and choose the Operating System.
4. Find HP System Management Homepage for Windows download link as shown below.
5. Find HP Insight Management Agents for Windows download link as shown below.

6. Now Download HP System Management Homepage from HP.com (Example: cp015389.exe file).

7. Download HP Insight Management Agents for Windows from HP.com (Example cp013744.exe file).

8. Save both SMH and Insight Agents download files to a folder of your choice.

Install HP SMH on your Server:

Let us install HP System Management Homepage now. SMH act as a dashboard and will display all the information provided by the HP agents. As we have not yet installed HP Agents and SNMP on your server, SMH will show a blank window after the installation. This is normal and do not panic. We will need to install HP Agents and SNMP on your server then HP SMH will start working.

1. Run the downloaded HP SMH  file on your server (In my case, it is cp015389.exe).
2. Click the Install button as shown below.

3. Now HP System Management Setup Wizard will be open as shown below.
4. Click on Next button.

5. Now you will be at Operating System Groups window.
6. Select Administrator and click Next button.

7. Now you are at User access screen.
8. Select Local Access, also select Administrator.
9. Select Enable Port 2301 for backward compatibility.

10. Select the Trust All under Trust Mode settings, then click Next.

11. Do Not select anything at IP Binding window, please click Next.

12. Do Not Select anything in IP Restricted Login settings. Click Next.

13. You will be at Summary screen as shown below.
14. Click Next button to start the installation.

15. HP SMH installation will start now. Please wait while the installation is completed.

16. Click Finish to exit the installation wizard.

Now you have successfully installed HP SMH on your Server. The SMH shortcut should be visible at the Desktop of your server Or will be available under Start -> All Programs -> HP agents –> SMH. You will be prompted to enter User name and Password at the SMH login screen. You need to use Windows Administrator User name and Password to login to SMH. Once you logged in to SMH, the screen will look like the one provided below.

As shown in above screen, SMH window will be blank because we have not installed Agents and SNMP Service in your server. Moreover, we also need to configure SNMP service on your sever. So please follow the next step to install the SNMP Service in Windows Operating System.

Install SNMP service in Windows OS:

HP SMH and HP HP Insight Management Agents uses SNMP protocol for communication. SNMP is part of Windows Operating system and it needs to be installed separately.  We can install SNMP in Windows 2003 from Add/Remove programs applet. If you are using Windows 2008, we can use Programs and Features applet in Windows control panel to install SNMP Service. Ensure that you install SNMP on your machine before you proceed here.

1. Once you install SNMP service, please click Start, click on Run, then type services.msc, click OK.

2. It will open Windows Services window.
3. Ensure that the SNMP service is available and started as well.

4. Congrats, you have checked whether SNMP service is installed on server now.

Install HP Insight Management Agents in Windows OS:

HP System Management Homepage collects data provided by the HP Insight Management Agents (HP Agents)  and display it on the screen. If no HP Agents are installed on your server, then the SMH window will be blank. When you download and install HP Insight Management Agents on your server, it will basically install 4 services in Windows. They are provided below:

1. Insight Management foundation Agent.
2. Insight Management Server Agent.
3. Insight Management Storage Agent.
4. Insight Management NIC agent.

These four services will be listed in Services window of your Windows. For successful installation of HP Agents, SNMP service must be installed and running on your server. So ensure that you have complete SNMP installation procedure before you install HP agents.

1. To install HP Agents, run the downloaded file from HP.com (In my case, file name: cp013744.exe).

2. Installation wizard will open. Click Install button.

3. Please wait while installation continues.

4. You may receive control panel applet as shown below. Click Cancel button.

5. Installation is completed now. Click Close button.

Now you may open HP System Management Homepage on your Server. As shown in below screen, HP SMH will be a blank window (without any server related information) because we have not yet configured SNMP service in Windows Operating System.  Proceed to next step to configure SNMP service on your server.

Configure SNMP Service in Windows OS:

As of now, we have installed SNMP, HP Agents and HP SMH on your Server. Now we need to configure SNMP service so that it can collect data (called as traps) from HP Agents  and send the information to  HP System Management Homepage. Please follow below provided steps to configure SNMP service on your Server.

1. Click Start, click on Run, then type services.msc in the text box then click OK.

2. Windows Services window will open on your Server.
3. Find the SNMP service from the list

4. Double-click on SNMP Service, SNMP Properties window will open.
5. Click on Security tab as shown below.

6. At the Security tab, click Add button under Accepted community names.

7. Select Community rights as READ ONLY.

8. Type public under community name then click on Add button.

9. Now the window will look the image provided below.
10. Click Add button again (as shown below)

11. Select Community rights as READ WRITE.

12. Type private under community name then click on Add button.

13. Now the SNMP Properties window should look like the image provided below.

14. Now click the Add button to add host names.

15. Type the IP: 127.0.0.1 in the field and click Add button as shown below.

16. Now click Apply and OK button.
17. Now you will be back at Windows Services window.
18. Find the HP System Management Service from the Services window.

19. Right Click on HP System management Homepage service and click on Restart

20. Please wait while the HP SMH Service is restarted.

21. Now Launch HP System Management Homepage, SMH icon will be available at Desktop.
22. If no SMH icon available on Desktop, type https://localhost:2381 in Internet Explorer browser.

23. It will launch HP System Management Homepage login screen.

24. Enter your Windows Administrator User name and Password, click Sign-in button to login.
25. It will launch HP System Management Homepage screen as shown below.

26. Congrats, You have successfully installed and configured SMH on your Server.

For more info about HP SMH, please visit Awesome HP SMH troubleshooting link here. Also note that there is another method to configure HP System Management Homepage on your server. Instead of using HP insight agents, you can use HP WBEM agents.