idrac express vs enterprise?

[Shannon Gray]

I am using (or trying to use) local racadm commands and it looks like ipmi is running fine. 

I'm still reviewing the docs though, so it's possible that I missed some crucial config or something.


----

# rpm -q --whatprovides /etc/init.d/ipmi
OpenIPMI-1.4.14-99.dell.123.1.el4

# service ipmi status
ipmi_msghandler module loaded.
ipmi_si module loaded.
ipmi_devintf module loaded.
/dev/ipmi0 exists.
#

# ls -lt /dev/ipmi0
crw-------  1 root root 253, 0 Nov 20 15:01 /dev/ipmi0

# racadm getsysinfo

NOTE:
This Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller does not support RACADM commands.
Please contact Dell Customer Service to upgrade your version of iDRAC.

# rpm -q --whatprovides /opt/dell/srvadmin/idrac/bin/racadm
srvadmin-idracadm-6.1.0-648
#


I did also try a _remote_ racadm connection and got a cert error as well as the support message.

# racadm -r XXX -u XXX -p XXX getsysinfo
Security Alert: Certificate is invalid - self signed certificate
Enter "Y" to continue,or any other key to quit:
Y

NOTE:
This Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller does not support RACADM commands.
Please contact Dell Customer Service to upgrade your version of iDRAC.


#


---

Shannon Gray
Senior Computer Specialist
Office of Planning and Budgeting
UW Tower, T-12 (NE 45th & Brooklyn Ave NE)
UW Mailbox:  359445
Phone: +1 206 616-9423 | +1 206 543-6277  
Fax: +1 206 543-0801
Email: grisgris at u.washington.edu
www.washington.edu/admin/pb/home



-----Original Message-----
From: Alexander Dupuy [mailto:alex.dupuy at mac.com] 
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 2:08 PM
To: Shannon Gray; linux-poweredge at dell.com
Subject: Re: idrac express vs enterprise?

Shannon Gray wrote:
> We just bought some PE R610's with iDRAC6 express and it looks like racadm does not work, although I could be missing something...
>
> # racadm getsysinfo
>
> NOTE:
> This Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller does not support RACADM commands.
> Please contact Dell Customer Service to upgrade your version of iDRAC.
> # racadm version
> RACADM version 6.1.0 (Build 18)
>   

I replied:
> Local (on the host CPU) racadm is supported with the iDRAC Express (I 
> use it frequently) and ssh to the iDRAC6 also allows local (on the 
> iDRAC6) racadm
> I am using the racadm from the Dell DTK 3.1.1-165:
> # racadm version
> RACADM version 6.1.0 (CSE Build 1.0)

I just tried a remote racadm command (racadm -u root -p ##### -r 
idrac-##### getsysinfo), which uses HTTPS to access the iDRAC6 web 
server (rather than ioctls on /dev/ipmi0 used by local racadm commands) 
and I got the same upgrade note that Shannon saw.  Absent some 
environment variables or something that Shannon didn't indicate in the 
typescripts provided, I might guess that Shannon's system doesn't have 
the IPMI drivers installed or running, or Build 18 of racadm always uses 
HTTPS, even for local racadm operations - although in either case I 
don't see how that would work since an iDRAC6 on a "shared" NIC cannot 
communicate with the host on the same NIC (the shared NIC cannot receive 
its own transmissions).  It is possible that Dell deliberately crippled 
the local operation of the racadm command in Build 18, but it seems more 
likely that Shannon was performing remote racadm commands.

In any case, I think the mystery here is more or less resolved - iDRAC6 
Express definitely does not support remote RACADM command-line clients, 
but does support the local racadm on the DTK 3.1.1 ISO, and may support 
local operation with other versions of racadm as well.

There is a useful comparison chart of feature support among BMC and 
various iDRAC6 configurations at 
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/smdrac3/idrac/idrac11mono/en/ug/html/racugc1.htm#wp51580 
- apart from claiming the iDRAC6 Express has no "RACADM Command Line" 
(should have separate "Local RACADM Command Line" and "Remote RACADM 
Command Line" with only the former checked for iDRAC6 Express), the only 
other inaccuracy I could find was that the BMC is claimed to not support 
"Serial-over-LAN (no proxy)" but this is not true - it supports IPMI 2.0 
with no-proxy Serial-over-LAN, and is not limited to the older IPMI 1.5 
proxy Serial-over-LAN.

Note that even with non-functional remote RACADM on the iDRAC6 Express, 
you can get a somewhat usable substitute with the following shell script 
that takes advantage of the built-in racadm command in the iDRAC6 
command line parser:

#!/bin/sh -
POSIXLY_CORRECT=true
USERNAME=root
usage() {
 echo >&2 "Usage: $0 -r remote [-u username] subcommand [options]"
 exit 1
}
while getopts r:u: opt "$@"
do
 case $opt in
  r) REMOTE=$OPTARG ;;
  u) USERNAME=$OPTARG ;;
  \?) usage ;;
 esac
done
if [ -z "$REMOTE" ]; then
 usage
fi
shift `expr $OPTIND - 1`
exec ssh $USERNAME@$REMOTE racadm "$@"

This substitute won't take a command line -p password argument since 
there isn't any simple way to get that into ssh - you'll have to write 
an expect script if you need that, but if you take that effort, you 
could have a very compatible drop-in replacement (except for use of SSH 
instead of HTTP, and lack of error exit codes) for remote racadm that 
works even with the iDRAC6 Express.

@alex

-- 
mailto:alex.dupuy at mac.com