Article Number: 000142904
Dell PowerEdge: iDRAC is not displaying ESXi 6.5/6.7 System Host Name and Operating System correctly
Summary: Provides steps to populate the system host name and operating system in iDRAC for servers running VMware ESXi 6.5 and newer.
Article Content
Symptoms
iDRAC users may notice that Dell EMC PowerEdge servers are not reporting VMware ESXi 6.5 or 6.7 System Host Name and Operating System fields in the iDRAC web and CLI interfaces. This behavior differs from the behavior previously witnessed on Dell EMC PowerEdge servers with VMware ESXi 6.0 and older.
Cause
iDRAC does not poll the hostname of the Operating System. The Operating System pushes the hostname to the iDRAC controller through CIM providers. In ESXi 6.0, the CIM provider is enabled by default. This behavior changed in ESXi 6.5. CIM providers are disabled by default.
Resolution
To correct this behavior, you must enable CIM providers through ESXCLI and reboot the host.
esxcli system wbem set –e true
/etc/init.d/sfcbd-watchdog start
After reboot is complete, refresh the iDRAC and you should see the hostname loaded updated.
In newer builds of ESXi 6.5 and 6.7, enabling wbem will still not show the correct ESXi hostname in iDRAC. This is due to an intentional change by VMware where this functionality (writing hostname to BMC via inbox CIM providers) was removed. The future intention is for the hostd service to perform this function.
If enabling wbem (directions listed above) do not resolve the issue, the recommendation is to install either the Dell EMC iSM (iDRAC Service Module) or OpenManage Server Administrator vSphere Installation Bundle (VIB) for ESXi in the ESXi operating system.
Article Properties
Affected Product
VMware ESXi 6.5.X, VMware ESXi 6.7.X
Product
iDRAC Service Module, iDRAC7, iDRAC8, iDRAC9, VMware ESXi 6.x, VMware ESXi 7.x
Last Published Date
19 Dec 2022
Version
6
Article Type
Solution