Reference Guide

Role of VC in UEFI supported servers

Virtual Connect (VC) allows server administrators to configure the server boot mode in a server profile. HP ProLiant Gen9

server blades use the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) between the server blade firmware and the Operating

System (OS). This requires VCM to make changes in how VC configures the boot options for a server blade.

The Virtual Connect UEFI Boot Order support feature has made major changes to our processing of physical servers

especially regarding the boot mode configuration. There are changes to determine if a server is UEFI capable and a Class 2

or Class 3 UEFI system. The handling of a Class 2 UEFI capable system the most complex.

There is a new option on the server profile to specify if a server should boot in UEFI mode or in Legacy mode. This setting is

not used when the profile is assigned to a non-UEFI capable server. If the profile is assigned to a Class 2 system, VC will have

to change the boot mode to match the profile setting. A configuration error occurs if a profile in Legacy boot mode is

assigned to a Class 3 UEFI system.

When a server is installed, and then added to VCM, VC checks to see if the server is UEFI capable or not. If the physical server

is a Class 2 system, then VC needs to read and potentially change the boot mode to match that of the profile as shown in

the flowchart above.

The table below shows the profile boot mode and the current boot mode of the server. The action to take indicates what

happens based on the Customer’s choice. The requested boot mode reflects the boot that needs to be set.

Profile Boot Mode

Current Boot Mode

Requested Boot Mode

Action to take

Legacy

— No action

Legacy

UEFI Legacy Set requested boot

mode, and then reboot

UEFI

Legacy UEFI Set requested boot

mode, and then reboot

UEFI

UEFI — No action

If the physical server is not UEFI capable VC will ignore the profile boot mode. An informational status will indicate that this

profile has a configuration that doesn’t match the server it is assigned to.