Idrac and drac5

First of all I work in a data center with the big 4 vendors.Dell, IBM, SUN, HP.

When dell came into the data centers with its m600 blades, R710,R900, 2950, I just looked it as on server to mount rack and manage.

With respect to the dracs and idracs they have been a thorn in my side. I have no problems updating the ilos (hp) management Modules (ibm), LDOM's with sun now known as oracle.

So I've had issues with updating the firmware from the web gui interface drac5 where they timeout and then kicks me out and then if says firmware in progress. This is a pretty common error you can google it and find this has caused many a admin grief.

1. If the firmware times out and then kicks out out. You must power down the server and then pull the power plugs on them. Because the drac is a basic linux operating system it should reset itself and you will be able to log back in without issue. But, you will still not be able to update the firmware on the drac. Run this command from the OS, (64 bit here) C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell\SysMgt\rac5>racadm racreset soft if that does not work then run C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell\SysMgt\rac5>racadm racreset hard.

After the drac reboots you can then try to run the update again from the drac gui firmware update or from the operating system. I find the updating from the OS takes up to 12 mins (that's too much nail biting for me) and updating from the drac gui takes about 6 mins.

2. I'm updated the idracs firmware on the m600s to have them turn off the lan connection. The work around for this is to turn them back on via the cmc. If you can't do it from there you are going to stand in front of the ikvm and at post hit control E and then the space bar to turn the lan connection back on. 

3. I believe the time out issue with the dracs is due to a console timeout at 300 secs. Really Dell? With the ibm management modules you can pick how much time you need.

4. Command line from ssh using putty, I'm going to explore this on tuesday and I'll update my notes.

Before you update any of the idracs or dracs make sure you do a racadm racreset soft first or hard like I do to make sure you don't have the time out issues.

But like i said, I'm going to invest in some time with ssh on tuesday