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December 7th, 2012 06:00

automated image deployment via CMC

I realise that this is a lot to read, so to pare it down somewhat, this is the root question:

Is it possible to specify a VirtualCD image via the iDrac command line using racadm, and then reboot the blade?

I am investigating the automation of disk-image deployment via scripts connecting with ssh to the CMC. Typically the same three chassis of 8 blades each would need redeploying per week, to match specific client setups. There is a library of 24 or so of blade images per client, 80% which are linux based and the rest Windows Server variants. The current blades are m600 and m610 blades in M1000e chassis. 

The plan is as follows:

A script is fired off that connects via the iDrac to each blade, specifies the correct Acronis VirtualCD with which to boot up and restarts the blade. The Acronis CD would automatically connect to the image server and restore the specific .TIB file found there to the local harddrive. The hardware will not change, so no image translation will be needed.

Currently this is all done manually via the CMC web interface.

My question is the following: With this current setup, is it possible to achieve the following goals:

  • unattended, automated backup of blade images
  • unattended, automated restore of blades images

This should all happen without any interaction with the CMC web interface.

I have investigated Snapdeploy 4, however this seems to require the Acronis Management Agent be running on the target blades. I will not be able to have this pre-installed on these blades. As far as I can tell, the only way to specify a VirtualCD is via the CMC web interface.

Am I shooting the moon on this?

4 Operator

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3K Posts

December 7th, 2012 07:00

Hi krutain,

You can mount an Image or drive to Blade server using two CLI methods

1) Using Remote File Share Feature

        In this case we need to have a CD Image on a share (NFS/CIFS), later use Remote File Share feature to connect the image to server. This feature will work only with iDRAC6 (M610).

       Command Syntax

             racadm -r -u -p remoteimage -c -u -p -l <

     Check the below links for details

  

       support.dell.com/.../racadmsu.htm

2) Using iVMCLI utility

         You can use iVMCLI to connect CD/DVD/Floppy/CD Image/Floppy Image. This option can be used in iDRAC and iDRAC6 (M600 and M610)

       Command Syntax

            ivmcli -r -u -p -c { | }

        Check Below links for details

         <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

        

Thanks-

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