yet another tech blog
Using VNC to connect to the iDRAC of a server is a great way to avoid Oracles eternal Java upgrades, security flaws, etc. At the other hand the Java viewer allows for mapping of ISO files when installing the server OS. That’s not an option with VNC, so what to do? Easy: Launch the VNC session and map the ISO file separately from the command line:
Check status of virtual media:
Mount the image:
Verify that the image is connected:
Disconnect the image:
SSH to the iDRAC of the machine:
Enter RACADM:
Check for existing RAID volumes:
Check ID:s of the physical disks and the controller:
Create the RAID volume:
In this case RAID6 with read-ahead and write-back switched on
Schedule the job (Note: Also see altenative method below):
Execute the job by powercycling the server:
ALTERNATIVE: Schedule the job without reboot:
If the RAID controller supports realtime execution, the virtual disk can be created without the need to reboot. To do this, add “–realtime” after the job creation command as follows:
Verify RAID volume creation after job has completed:
Background
Yesterday I needed to setup an R720 remotely and it needed a new RAID volume created. The issue was that rather than the normal Enterprise license the server had an iDRAC Express license (no remote console) so it wasn’t possible to use the normal UEFI / BIOS wizard to create the disks. Luckily a GUI isn’t required and the disks can be created quite happily with RACADM.
Local and remote
RACADM can be used locally on the server and remotely. In the examples below all commands are done from a remote workstation across the network. It is also possible to SSH to the iDRAC and execute the commands from there (or from the server OS itself it it’s already setup).
Check the presence of virtual disks by using:
In the below case the machine doesn’t have any virtual volumes yet:
If the machine had a virtual disk defined we’d see the below:
To delete an existing virtual disk:
Then schedule the job:
Reboot server to execute job:
Check the status of the job:
To view all jobs (results in a list of jobs and their status):
To create a virtual disk / volume
Help will show:
So we need the FQDD of the Controller and also the list of FQDD:s for our physical disks.
Checking our controller FQDD:
Checking our physical disks FQDD:
Example of creating the virtual disk with RAID0, write-through and no read-ahead (YES, IT’S ALL ONE LINE):
Example of creating the virtual disk with RAID0, write-back cache and read-ahead enabled (YES, IT’S ALL ONE LINE):
Schedule the job:
Restart to execute the job:
View the virtual disk once created:
Set the DNS first to ensure the iDRAC can resolve the NTP host names:
racadm -r 10.1.1.100 -u root -p calvin set idrac.ipv4static.dns1 8.8.8.8
Set the NTP server names:
racadm -r 10.1.1.100 -u root -p calvin set idrac.NTPConfigGroup.ntp1 0.asia.pool.ntp.org
racadm -r 10.1.1.100 -u root -p calvin set idrac.NTPConfigGroup.ntp2 1.asia.pool.ntp.org
racadm -r 10.1.1.100 -u root -p calvin set idrac.NTPConfigGroup.ntp3 2.asia.pool.ntp.org
In case it won’t update the time when FQDN’s are used, IP addresses can also be used:
racadm -r 10.1.1.100 -u root -p calvin set idrac.NTPConfigGroup.ntp1 129.250.35.250
racadm -r 10.1.1.100 -u root -p calvin set idrac.NTPConfigGroup.ntp2 180.211.88.50
racadm -r 10.1.1.100 -u root -p calvin set idrac.NTPConfigGroup.ntp3 202.112.29.82
Enable NTP and set max hops:
racadm -r 10.1.1.100 -u root -p calvin set idrac.NTPConfigGroup.NTPEnable Enabled
racadm -r 10.1.1.100 -u root -p calvin set idrac.NTPConfigGroup.NTPMaxDist 16
Set the timezone:
racadm -r 10.1.1.100 -u root -p calvin set idrac.time.timezone Japan
Example of enabling the VNC server on an iDRAC and setting the password:
racadm -r 10.1.1.200 -u root -p calvin set idrac.vncserver.enable Enabled
racadm -r 10.1.1.200 -u root -p calvin set idrac.vncserver.Password calvin
Note: Default port for VNC on the iDRAC is 5901
Connection example can be found here.