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Krist van Besien
Asked: 2014-02-15 06:37:32 +0800 CST

Provisioning DELL servers using only linux tools

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We have taken delivery of a bunch off Dell Poweredge Rack servers. Unfortunately when ordering it was neglegted to ask for dhcp to be enabled in the built in iDRAC controlers... So they are all stuck on the same IP address. Which means that I'll have to go to each of them individually and configure a new IP in the console...

In the future I want to avoid that. Now Dell proposes to deliver the next batch with auto discovery enabled. As I understand this means that when the machine wakes up for the first time the iDRAC will request a DHCP address. The DHCP server then supposedly also provides a "provisioning" server, that provides it with a username and password, and a configuration to be applied. This would allow us to for example configure things like RAID automatically.

However, I can't seem to find a way to set up such a provisioning server that does not involve setting up a windows machine. I want to use Linux tools exclusively.

Is there a way to do this? I want to just rack servers, switch them on, and then do everything remotely. And that using only linux tools?

dell

3 Answers

  1. Why start with the DRACs at all? Dell can ship servers with a preconfigured RAID setup, so all you need is autodeploy an OS on all of them (kickstart/pxe/foreman/whatever you prefer), and then configure the DRACs locally using racadm when you have an OS already running on the hosts. That, in turn, can also be automated using Puppet/Chef/Ansible/Salt/etc

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  2. Here is a great guide for setting up an OS using Linux tools: Kickstart Guide

    Regardless of whether the servers have DHCP or not, you should still be able to PXE boot them... Usually, if you press F12 when the machine starts up, you can choose to boot via Network Card.

    If you configure your kickstart server on the same network, you can image a Dell blade/server in less than 5 mins.

    You might want to look at the BIOS options as well, to enable PXE booting as a default option, but ensure that you have an option in your PXE config (on the kickstart server) to boot from local disk after initial setup, otherwise it will keep reinstalling every time you reboot.

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  3. If all you want is DHCP you can order you servers that way. When you customize your order:

    Under "Systems Management Upgrades"

    select "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Enabled"

    If you want to try auto-discovery refer to my answer here: How to use auto-discovery with iDRAC Enterprise?

    you can use you can use "Dell Management Plug-In for VMware vCenter". The piece that handles auto discovery run in a standalone VM. I would re-enable auto-discovery on a server that you have and play with it before you order allot of them configured that way.

    For more information about Auto-Discovery: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/b/techcenter/archive/2012/09/14/auto-discovery-network-setup-specification.aspx

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