HP4000M - configuration
In August 2012 I acquired a number of HP4000M switches - these are really quite elderly 100Mbit switches. When 1Gbit/s is typical in even SOHO desktop switches, 100Mbit/s is hardly an impressive speed today, but for me it is sufficient. More importantly, the switches come with a complete set of professional management features (SNMP, VLANs, monitoring, filtering), which is perfect for my purposes.
When I started configuring them, I went to look for a way to download the configuration file (as a backup) as well as a way to upload a new one (mass changes are easier done with an editor). Google did eventually lead me to some information, but it wasn't exactly well documented.
Download configuration file
The HP4000m uses TFTP so you will need a TFTP-server on your network. How to set up a TFTP server is outside the scope of this article.
Because the file transfer must be initiated from the switch, it looks more like a file upload. I prefer to think of the switch as the target or the client, hence I think of this as downloading the config file. Apologies if that sounds confusing.
- On your TFTP server, create the target file:
touch <tftpdir>/hp4000m/switch.config
chmod 777 <tftpdir>/hp4000m/switch.config - telnet <switch-address>
- Choose "Diagnostics"
- Choose "Command prompt"
- Enter: "put <tftp-server> CONFIG <tftpdir>/hp4000m/switch.config
The server will automatically reboot to activate the new config.
Upgrading firmware
Firmware upgrade is also done via TFTP, but you don't need the command line interface.
First of all, retrieve the lastest firmware from the HP support website. At the moment, the latest version is C.09.30. The zip archive contains two file - release note and the firmware file. I extracted the C-09_30.swi file into <tftpdir>/hp4000m/. The rest is straight forward:
- telnet <switch-address>
- Choose "Download OS"
- Enter TFTP server address, and <tftpdir>/hp4000m/C_09_30.swi
- Hit eXecute
The server will automatically reboot with the new firmware.
