Using Dell racadm commands involving cfgServerBootOnce and cfgServerFirstBootDev

Question

I have a customer that wants me to apply the following two commands...

racadm config -g cfgServerInfo -o cfgServerBootOnce 0 racadm config -g cfgServerInfo -o cfgServerFirstBootDevice PXE

I have used these commands in the past to initiate a one time PXE boot. But this customer is requesting this in order to permanently set the server to PXE boot.

But, when I run these commands and reboot, it does PXE boot, but then the commands appear to revert back to their default. If I run

racadm getconfig -g cfgServerInfo -o cfgServerFirstBootDevice PXE

It is no longer set to 'PXE', it is back to "Normal'

I think this is normal behavior. But the customer seems to believe that by using the other command, cfgServerBootOnce, and setting it to 0, that it should be persistent.

The documentation does sort of seem to support this, but I have never used it this way and I am not having success getting it to behave this way.

Hoping someone can shed some light on this and help me to either understand what I am doing wrong or to help me with supporting information to take back to the customer.

I suggested using this command instead to achieve the desired effect...

racadm set bios.bootsettings.bootseq NIC.Integrated.1-1-1,HardDisk.List.1-1

But they insist that they want me to run the other command.

Daniel My · Answer

cfgserverfirstbootdevice is used to configure a one time boot override option in the iDRAC. cfgserverbootonce is used to enable/disable boot override. The boot override will set the configured option in cfgserverfirstbootdevice as the first boot device for the next system restart if cfgserverbootonce is enabled. This is not a persistent change, and it does not change the BIOS/UEFI boot order.

dibenda · Answer

Hello Daniel,

I would like to boot only once using PXE, and from the internal SD card from the 2nd boot.

My current 'Set Boot Order Enable' is: Disk.SDInternal.1-1,NIC.PxeDevice.1-1

When I use boot once feature choosing PXE, the server boot from PXE, but then the PXE interface is permanenly configured as first device, and the result is a loop, every restart PXE boots. The boot order become: NIC.PxeDevice.1-1,Disk.SDInternal.1-1.

Tried via GUI, via racadm etc ...

It should be a very simple function, but doesn't work. I read other threads about a similar problem.

The bios is updated at the last release (Dell PowerEdge XR2)

Any suggestion?

Thanks and regards,

Daniele

DELL-Charles R · Answer

Hello dibenda,

When you mention you used GUI; Did you launch virtual console and select Next Boot option?
You may try different virtual console plug in: Native, Java, HTML5

What racadm commands did you run?

Did you run both mentioned above?

cfgserverfirstbootdevice is used to configure a one time boot override option in the iDRAC.

cfgserverbootonce is used to enable/disable boot override.

The boot override will set the configured option in cfgserverfirstbootdevice as the first boot device for the next system restart if cfgserverbootonce is enabled. This is not a persistent change, and it does not change the BIOS/UEFI boot order.

Please let me know how it goes.

sturn992 · Answer

Is there a way to set the pxe device using racadm?

I am using a integrated nic to pxe boot my host and I need to set 40+ servers to boot this way. I would like to make a script to ssh to the IPMI and make the change for me.

DELL-Chris H · Answer

Sturn992,

I researched this and to make it persistent I think the proper commands would be

racadm -r (server) -u user -p password config -g cfgServerInfo -o cfgServerFirstBootDevice PXE

racadm -r (server) -u user -p password config -g cfgServerInfo -o cfgServerBootOnce 0

racadm -r (server) -u user -p password serveraction powercycle

Let me know how it goes.

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Using Dell racadm commands involving cfgServerBootOnce and cfgServerFirstBootDev

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