DRAC setup on a poweredge 2950

Welcome aboard ! The DRAC is similar to HP's Insight Lights Out adapter. When the server boots, you'll see the DRAC initialize and there will be a CTRL key sequence to enter the setup program and change the IP address as well as other configuration settings.

The User's Guide for the DRAC 5 is here - http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/smdrac3/drac5/145/en/ug/index.htm

Hope that helps, let us know of more questions or details you need.

"Welcome aboard ! The DRAC is similar to HP's Insight Lights Out adapter. When the server boots, you'll see the DRAC initialize and there will be a CTRL key sequence to enter the setup program and change the IP address as well as other configuration settings.

The User's Guide for the DRAC 5 is here - http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/smdrac3/drac5/145/en/ug/index.htm

Hope that helps, let us know of more questions or details you need."

Thanks Scott, this will definitely get me going in the right direction!

Thank you. I appreciate this importnat link as well. I would love saving it to a seachable document like Office Word 2010 and into a Flash Drive to bring to projects as part of my tool sets.

Here's the main link for the DRACs - http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/smdrac3/

Here's the main page for the DRAC 5 where you can download a PDF version - http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/smdrac3/drac5/150/en/index.htm

You navigate to those pages by starting at http://support.dell.com then :
- click on Manuals at the top right
- click on "software" at the bottom for "Option 2: Get Manuals for Individual Components"
- click, Systems Management, then it expands to the right for all the manuals

Kind of a pain to navigate, but worth the effort.

Hi, I just got my DRAC card in the mail and I opened it up and there was one booklet in it that said, basically, Technical Install Stuff in approx 30 languages.

There was no information about actually installing the card, and the manuals that I found online direct me to read the manual included with the equipment.

Apparently I should have gotten something in the package with a bit more instruction. Anybody have a link to the missing document?

-g

And of course, no sooner than I post that I can't find it, I do find it.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/pe2950/en/hom/html/install.htm#wp1075991

Talks about needing to remove the central riser board. This is the part that wasn't obvious. I may also have the wrong card because one of the pin sets between the mainboard and the DRAC are not aligned so that the jumper goes straight but instead has to jog sideways more than 1/2 inch.

-g

Hi, just want to relate my experience with installing this card.

The diagram was none too clear and left a bit to the imagination. The biggest thing which threw me was the card had a PCIE looking connector on it. The connector doesn't actually connect to anything.

From the front of the server looking into it, the place it goes into is at the far right corner. There is a little plastic plug in the rear of the server that you have to take out. You also need to take out the small riser card in order to get the DRAC card in.

Before inserting the card into the server, make sure you have the (extreemly) short ribbon cables connected to the card and rolled up out of the way. There are two different size cables. The connectors on the mainboard and the DRAC card don't line up very well, each had to be offset slightly and there is barely enough length to connect.

On the DRAC card, the RJ45 receptical goes down and you have to angle the card in carefully until the receptical goes into the small space provided for it and then rotate it some until the slot on the DRAC board toward the rear meshes with the plastic stand-off with a cap and the front two plastic stand-offs toward the front line up. Then gently press down until the card snaps into place. The PCIE type connector just floats there, not quite touching anything but close enough to make me nervous if the card wasn't attached so firmly.

Then just connect the cables to the mainboard and, while the instructions do not say, I believe you are supposed to re-install the riser card. There appears to be enough clearance for another (thin) card to be inserted into the riser if necessary.

Then close up the case, connect up the RJ45 to whatever network you have for it and start the machine.

The next part was the BIOS settings and the Installation Guide didn't say a blinking thing about it. Shame. I punted.

I suppose there are install instructions someplace for how to do the initial configuration from the BIOS panel someplace, but I didn't find them.

I punted and pressed Ctrl+E and wandered around a bit.

I ended up changing the IP stuff and setting a logon password and setting the name to something similar to the name of the machine's OS name.

I saved the settings and the machine instantly continued reboot into the OS. The NIC didn't respond to a ping at first, I gather it was still setting up. Within a minute or so it answered pings. I was then able to type in it's address via IE and presto, there it was. Very Nice.

I absolutely love the card and the fidelity. The console window comes up and it took me several tries to catch the popup blocker message to allow the pop up, then I had to install the active-x item (don't recall which order those two events were in). I noticed that the scroll bars kept appearing and I couldn't see all of the window. I just happened to full screen it and then un-fullscreened it and the window was sized correctly with no scroll bar.

I haven't yet installed any software on any of the servers. I note that there is a caution to not install the server piece and the remote monitor software on the same machine. Even without any software or updates, this works great!

Thanks Dell!

-g

Here is a DRAC5 resource:

http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/systems-management/w/wiki/4358.drac5-home.aspx