DRAC : Unable to use it for OS installation ? is it normal ?

[Mircea Vutcovici]

I've noticed that if I am connected to a slow network connection or I
have packet loss, the DRAC will disconnect both the remote display and
the virtual CD.
I've installed remotely Ubuntu Linux 8.4.1 and VMware ESX and ESXi.
I've run also firmware updates remotely. Only for DRAC you need
someone to unplug the power cord for a few seconds.
As an alternative of virtual CD you could use PXE boot. You just need
dnsmasq (for DHCP TFTP and DNS) and sometimes NFS or HTTP/FTP server.
The advantage is that if you get disconnected you do not have to
restart from beginning.

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 7:15 AM, Florent Gilain
<Florent.Gilain at direct-energie.com> wrote:
> That's the error message i get too..."SSL socket errors".
> I'm not a Linux Guru, so, difficult for me to do something else than booting from original VMware CDROM to update my ESX...was thinking DRAC would do the trick  ;-((
>
> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com [mailto:linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com] De la part de christian.peper at kpn.com
> Envoyé : lundi 3 novembre 2008 11:34
> À : linux-poweredge at dell.com
> Objet : RE: DRAC : Unable to use it for OS installation ? is it normal ?
>
> Florent,
>
> I deploy all my bare metal servers this way and have had no serious issues.
> My server have system BIOS 1.3.7 and DRAC5 v1.20.
>
> On occasion, I get SSL socket errors, loose the session and any mounted ISOs. But if I simply reconnect, everything is fine and the server just went ahead with what it was doing.
> I am using a custom boot ISO (only 5 MB) to do unattended network installs with kickstart. So if it looses the connection to the CD after 1 minute, that is fine. Would I be doing a CD-based install, the loss of connection would be more seious of course. :)
>
> Chris.
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com
>> [mailto:linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com] On Behalf Of Florent Gilain
>> Sent: Friday, October 31, 2008 12:19 PM
>> To: linux-poweredge at lists.us.dell.com
>> Subject: RE : DRAC : Unable to use it for OS installation ?
>> is it normal ?
>>
>> ok, because during my tests, I was (or the remote virtual
>> storage) was disconnected after few minutes...maybe is there
>> a timeout to configure somewhere in the drac virtual cdrom/iso menu ?
>>
>> Ps : each time i use the latest 5.5 SUU DVD iso/dvdrom to
>> update my PE servers (1950/2950..), DRAC firmware update
>> always fails in SUU...
>>
>> Florent
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> De : linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com
>> [linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com] de la part de Rainer Traut
>> [tr.ml at gmx.de] Date d'envoi : vendredi 31 octobre 2008 11:42
>> À : linux-poweredge at lists.us.dell.com Objet : Re: DRAC :
>> Unable to use it for OS installation ? is it normal ?
>>
>> I just did that, updated a couple of PE2950 with el4 to el5
>> via ISO mounted from my workstation.
>>
>> Be sure to use the latest firmware for the drac, I think it
>> is 1.40 and 1.50 for drac 4 and 5.
>>
>> Florent Gilain schrieb:
>> > Hello all,
>> >
>> > On my PE 1850/1950/2950, i have a DRAC and i was thinking i
>> could use it for connecting a remote CDROM/ISO to boot on it
>> and install the OS.
>> >
>> > but this doesn't seem to work ? did somebody has already
>> succeed in doing this ?
>> >
>> > for example, I tryed to update a remote ESX from 3.5 to
>> 3.5u2 using the 3.5u2 ISO bootalbe cdrom, and it failed too..
>> >
>> > thanks
>> >
>> > Florent
>
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