DRAC and VNC?

[Ryan Kish]

I have 50+ x950's machines. All have the DRAC5. Here are some of my observations.

- The DRAC5 interface works perfectly fine with my Ubuntu & SLES machines.
-- With Ubuntu, I had to remove the link from /bin/sh->/bin/dash and replace it with /bin/sh->/bin/bash to facilitate installation of the plugin.
-- With Ubuntu, I had to download the firefox (version 2) installer directly from the mozilla website.
-- With Ubuntu/SLES I have to run firefox as root to use the plugin. (I have seen mentions of workarounds to this limitation, but never followed up on them).

- VNC
-- The setup of the 'remote viewer' leads me to believe that Dell is leveraging Avocent Technology.
-- Indeed the viewer is using some version of the VNC protocol, but unlike the usual versions of VNC, the 'remote viewer' is using two ports. One for video, one for keyboard and mouse.
-- Access to the viewer must be authenticated via the web application, I have tried getting around this with no luck.


Overall, I really don't mind popping up a firefox session (as root) to run the console. For the most part, I only need this for reboots or in cases where a system has failed, both of which are infrequent. The DRAC5 cards have worked pretty well for me, considering I manage Dell systems hundreds to thousands of miles away from my home with out the need for remote hands (ability to reboot, use virtual media, console, etc..). I know that if you/your company is willing to make additional investments, the there are applications (like Avocent's DSView) that are able to manage Dell machines using DRAC5 and possibly older versions as well. 

Hope this was somewhat useful.
Cheers,
Ryan



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/attachments/20081030/9865a6a7/attachment.htm