Systems Management General

[ClxAdmin]

Hi,

I've just got a new Dell R610 and I've been trying to setup the iDRAC card on it. I've successfully configured it on multiple Dell T300's and the iLO's interfaces on various models of HP servers. But for some reason I'm having severe problems with this particular one.

I think it's got an iDRAC Express card as there's no additional ethernet port on the server, just the standard 4 on-board NIC's. The iDRAC BIOS are version 1.70 which I understand is the latest.

From the iDRAC configuration screen (Ctrl+E), iDRAC and IPMI over Lan are both enabled. NIC Selection is set to shared though for Active LOM it reports 'No Active LOM'. VLANs are disabled, does the iDRAC Express support them? - once it's working I'd like to enable it if possible.

Only NIC1 (eth0) is connected to the switch. I've tried configuring it with DHCP but it never gets an address even though the OS gets one.

To eliminate the Switch/VLANs I even tried connecting NIC1 directly to another server and running tcpdump with the iDRAC configured with a static IP address (the default of 192.168.0.120). Didn't get a thing from it. I could see the arp requests going out but no responses from the iDRAC.

So how do you get the iDRAC to work??

Thanks.

[powerman-asdf]

Same issue here too. R610, arrived yesterday, iDRAC6 Express. I don't remember firmware version, but BIOS version was 3.0.0 (which released few days after latest iDRAC firmware 1.70, so I suppose I've latest firmware version). The setup is same as described by CLXADMIN.

Additionally I've tried to manually add ARP records for iDRAC MAC address and tried to access it from next server connected to R610 with 2 NIC ports (eth0 using hosting's switch connected to internet and eth1 using our local unmanaged switch connected only to our servers) - no luck. iDRAC never replied even on ping.

I've also tried to temporary set iDRAC's IP address as eth0:0 alias in OS booted from LiveCD - I was able to connect to OS using that IP, so this isn't routing/network configuration issue.

[powerman-asdf]

Here is my version info:

BIOS Revision: 3.0.0

Broadcom…: v6.0.11

MPT2BIOS-7.11.01.00

iDRAC6 Configuration Utility: 1.59

IDRAC6 Firmware Revision: 1.70.21

Lifecycle Controller version: 1.5.0.671

Primary Backplane Firmware Revision: 1.07

I've just reset iDRAC6 to factory defaults, then change: IPv4's IP+gateway+DNS(8.8.8.8), domain and host names (to existing name pointing to iDRAC's IP), and LAN user's password - nothing else was changed. Reboot several times using KVM's Ctrl-Alt-Del - iDRAC doesn't reply to ping.

[tommo666]

The idrac express is an extention of the original BMC standard, it does not contain a web interface etc. To use it you need ipmi shell <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell> you can find this on the web or the dell cd's.

[powerman-asdf]

I don't have neither Windows nor Dell CD. Even if it doesn't contain web interface, isn't it must reply to ping anyway?

Ok, I've tried ipmitool (IPMI over Lan is enabled in DRAC contifiguration, password is also set) on next server in same rack:

# ipmitool -v -v -I lan -H _m_._y_._i_._p_ -U root -P _my_pass_ power reset
ipmi_lan_send_cmd:opened=[0], open=[269004796]
IPMI LAN host 78.129.210.127 port 623
Sending IPMI/RMCP presence ping packet
ipmi_lan_send_cmd:opened=[1], open=[269004796]
No response from remote controller
Get Auth Capabilities command failed
ipmi_lan_send_cmd:opened=[1], open=[269004796]
No response from remote controller
Get Auth Capabilities command failed
Error: Unable to establish LAN session
Failed to open LAN interface
Unable to set Chassis Power Control to Reset
#

As for me, looks like either hardware or firmware issue.

[ClxAdmin]

I wasn't trying to access the web interface, the IPMI commands will do but something to do with networking isn't working on this iDRAC. FWIW, when I used ipmitool on the host with the problematic iDRAC I'm able to query it fine. It's just when I try and do it over the network that it doesn't work, because the networking doesn't work on the iDRAC for some reason.

When it's set to DHCP it doesn't send out any DHCP requests, I've had it connected directly to another server with tcpdump running - nothing shows up. And also when it's configured with a static IP address it doesn't respond to ARP requests, this has nothing to do with it having a web interface or not.

So could this be a hardware or software issue? How do you go about getting this type of issue resolved?

[DELL-Jeff M]

Actually, the iDRAC 6 Express does have a web interface.  Go into the Ctrl+E setup utility during POST, reset it to factory defaults, then give it a unique static IP address that is in your normal subnet.  Try it with IE7 or 8, and see if it responds.  If not, then shut down the server, unplug all external cables, then drain flea power by holding in the power button for 10 seconds.  Plug everything back in and crank it up, then check the settings in Ctrl+E and redo that step if necessary, then see if it works with a browser. 

[ClxAdmin]

JeffLM, I've already tried as you suggested but just to be sure I thought I'd give it a go again. Same result as last time - it doesn't work. I configured it with an IP address that is in the same subnet as the other hosts that are on the same LAN segment.

Ping doesn't work nor does trying to establish a TCP connection to port 80/443. From a tcpdump I can quite clearly see that the problem is down to the iDRAC not responding to ARP requests. Without this a connection will never be established as the host initiating it doesn't know the MAC address of the host to send the packet to.

It is NIC1/eth0 that the iDRAC Express piggy backs isn't it?

Device ID                 : 32
Device Revision           : 0
Firmware Revision         : 1.70
IPMI Version              : 2.0
Manufacturer ID           : 674
Manufacturer Name         : DELL Inc
Product ID                : 256 (0x0100)
Product Name              : Unknown (0x100)
Device Available          : yes
Provides Device SDRs      : yes

Any other ideas of how I can get the iDRAC working? Surely it's got to be a lot simpler than this. I had nowhere near as many problems with a load of T300's. This has got to indicate a hardware/firmware issue??

[DELL-Jeff M]

Well, you could try reseating the card, but if that doesn't do it I reckon it might be broken.  Call Tech Support.

[powerman-asdf · Accepted solution]

Today Dell engineer replaced our motherboard, and this fixed issue with DRAC.

New motherboard uses older main BIOS and DRAC BIOS versions:

main: was 3.0.0, now 2.0.11
drac: was 1.70.21, now 1.41.13

Now DRAC works, and, yes, it does have web interface.

P.S. Sadly, but this won't fixed another issue we've with H200 controller or it's linux driver mpt2sas: https://bugs.launchpad.net/linux/+bug/777441 (ClxAdmin, if you're using Linux on this server, which linux distributive/version you're using?)