IT Assistant Integration with Remote Access

ControllersEnterprise Systems Group (ESG)

Dell™ OpenManage™Systems Management

Dell White PaperBy Manoj Gujarathi

Marshal SavageSystems Engineer

OpenManage Development

September 2002

ContentsIntroduction.............................................................3Remote Hardware Integrated with IT Assistant.......4Discovery and Application Launch...........................6

Remote Access Address Book...................................7Managing Address Book Entries.........................9

DRAC II Integration...............................................11Conclusion..............................................................12

Authors..............................................................12

FiguresFigure 1: IT Assistant Status Page showing ERA launch Point...................................6Figure 2: IT Assistant Remote Access Address Book..................................................7Figure 3: Data Company’s Network Example.............................................................8Figure 4: An Example of a DRAC III Address Book Entry.........................................10

TablesTable 1: IT Assistant versions supporting Remote Access Controllers........................4Table 2: Information needed for creating Remote Access Address Book Entries.......9

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Section 1Introduction

Dell OpenManage™ IT Assistant is a browser-based tool that monitors and manages Dell servers, desktops, and portables using industry-standard Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Common Information Model (CIM), and Desktop Management Interface (DMI) protocols. The IT Assistant feature set includes system discovery, status reporting, comprehensive event management, asset and inventory reporting, remote system configuration, and storage management. This paper discusses how IT Assistant is integrated with Dell remote-access controllers. Examples and technical tips can help administrators use IT Assistant more effectively and debug common problems. Some features discussed in this article are not supported in IT Assistant before version 6.3, so a minimum installation of systems management applications from the OpenManage Systems Management CD, version 3.1, is required.

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Section 2Remote Hardware Integrated with IT Assistant

Dell hardware that enables remote management includes the Dell Remote Access Card III (DRAC III) and the Dell Remote Assistant Card II (DRAC II), both Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) cards installed in Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers, and the Embedded Remote Access (ERA) controller, which is built into the server or added on as a daughter card. These devices allow administrators to manage a server without physically accessing it. Table 1 shows the IT Assistant version in which the remote management devices were first integrated. IT Assistant, a centralized management station, detects which servers on the network contain remote-access controllers. This tool discovers the type of remote-access controller and the respective software agent running on a managed server. In the Status tab, IT Assistant displays a root-level tree item that contains details about the hardware and agent version. In addition, the tool propagates the agent status to the global system status shown in the System tree.

Table 1 shows when Dell OpenManage Remote Hardware was first integrated with Dell OpenManage IT Assistant.

Application Integrated Application Version IT Assistant Version Protocols Supported

DRAC II 2.3.0 6.0 SNMPDRAC III 1.0 6.1 SNMPERA 1.0 6.3 SNMP

Table 1: IT Assistant versions supporting Remote Access Controllers

After IT Assistant has discovered the remote hardware, a launch point to the specialized management console becomes available. IT Assistant provides two types of launch points based on whether the managed node is responding to requests or not. If the managed node is working correctly, then IT Assistant provides a launch point from the ‘Status’ tab. If the server is not responding, then IT Assistant provides an Address Book entry to reach the remote hardware. IT Assistant updates the address book every discovery cycle.

The support levels provided by IT Assistant for the remote hardware include one or more of the following:1. Discovering the hardware presence and the respective agent

running on the managed node server system.2. Showing the status of these applications in IT Assistant ‘Status’

page with details about the hardware and agent version.

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3. Propagating the agent status to global system status shown in the System tree.

4. Launching the application console right from IT Assistant ‘Status’ page or from IT Assistant Address Book.

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Section 3Discovery and Application Launch

The three forms of remote access controllers detected by IT Assistant use SNMP-enabled agents. Therefore, IT Assistant supports remote hardware management through SNMP only. The SNMP agent resides on the managed server, not on the remote access controller. The Managed Server then communicates with the remote access controller to provide information to IT Assistant. IT Assistant discovers systems on registered subnets and at registered IP or hostname addresses. The remote access controller usually has an IP address assigned to it, so IT Assistant detects it as a networked entity that responds to a ping command. This network entity is placed in the ‘Unclassified’ category1 with a gray question mark because no standard management agent is running on the remote access controller. IT Assistant can only show that it is a networked object that responds to a ping. The only exception is the ERA module that is part of the blade server management solution. In this case, IT Assistant adds ERA to a chassis group.

As shown in Figure 1, similar to the support for OMSA, IT Assistant shows a unique item under the ‘Status’ tab that enables the ‘Remote Connect’ button. Clicking on the ‘Remote Connect’ button will automatically launch the Remote Interface. If the system is not responding, then it is possible to launch the Remote Interface from the Remote Access Address Book.

Figure 1: IT Assistant Status Page showing ERA launch Point

1IT Assistant uses the Unclassified group to store all network entities that respond to a ping command and that do not have a Dell-supported management agent running on them.

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Section 4Remote Access Address Book

Upon discovery of a server, IT Assistant checks whether it contains a remote-access controller. If it does, IT Assistant automatically adds the server to its Remote Access Address Book, a list of all servers and associated remote access controller components that it can access. The address book is available under the Management option in the left navigation bar (see Figure 2). IT Assistant updates the address book during each discovery cycle.

Figure 2: IT Assistant Remote Access Address Book

Consider a fictional mid-sized organization, The Data Company, based in New York. The Data Company has several offices throughout the United States and Europe. Bob, the main system administrator, manages the servers and storage systems in the New York office as well as some point-of-sale and database servers in the company’s offices elsewhere. The Data Company has deployed Dell remote management solutions on most of its servers where remote access is absolutely critical. Bob uses IT Assistant to monitor and manage his Dell server and storage systems.

One day, Bob discovers that PE2650_Tenn, the PowerEdge 2650 in Tennessee, is not responding (see Figure 3). IT Assistant shows a black down-arrow next to the server, signifying that it cannot contact the OpenManage Server Administrator software on the server. From the Remote Access Address Book in IT Assistant, Bob double-clicks on the hung server. IT Assistant then opens the remote console to the DRAC III in the PowerEdge 2650. Bob logs in and issues a power cycle command to the server through the DRAC III. This command physically disconnects the power from the server, pauses to let the system spin down, and finally restarts the server. To search for any memory, BIOS, or I/O errors, Bob opens the remote console to watch the server go through the boot process. After the server boots, IT Assistant detects that Server Administrator is running and removes the black down-arrow from the server listing. Bob selects the IT Assistant Status tab and clicks Server Administrator in the Status tree. He then clicks Launch OMSA to access Server Administrator so

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that he can run diagnostics on the server to correct the system-hang problem.

Figure 3: Data Company’s Network Example

Bob uses the Remote Address Book to connect to PE2650_modem, a server outside of the corporate office (see Figure 3). In such a situation, when the server is not yet wired into the network or the network is down, the server can be reached only through a dial-up connection. IT Assistant cannot discover PE2650_modem because the network connection is not available. However, Bob knows that IT Assistant can still enable the remote connection to the server because he can manually enter servers into the Remote Access Address Book (see the “Managing Address Book Entries” section of this paper). Bob sets up a manual entry that specifies a PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) connection with the server’s remote access controller. When Bob requests a connection, IT Assistant automatically dials the remote access controller and creates the PPP connection. If IT Assistant is running in a Web-served configuration, then it automatically creates a proxy of the PPP connection so that a remote user can access the PPP connection through the IT Assistant management station. This proxy allows Bob to have a single-access point—the phone line—through which he can manage the remote server. Using the remote console feature of the DRAC III, Bob can now control PE2650_modem as if he were sitting in front of it.

In addition to DRAC III, The Data Company has deployed DRAC II remote hardware components. The two cards differ in that the DRAC II management console application resides on the management station, whereas the DRAC III (and ERA) console is embedded in the firmware of the physical card located in the managed server. To connect to the remote firmware, the DRAC II console must keep an address book of all the DRAC II hardware. IT Assistant adds all DRAC II hardware that it discovers into the DRAC II address book, but the reverse is not true. System administrator Bob has spent significant time entering several manual entries into the DRAC II address book without realizing that the new entries would not be automatically added into the IT Assistant address book. However, all his efforts are not lost, because IT Assistant has an import feature that automatically reads in the new entries. To import the entries from the DRAC II address book, he clicks ‘Remote Access Address Book’ under the

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Management option in the left navigation bar of the IT Assistant interface. Then he clicks ‘Import DRAC II Address Book’. IT Assistant imports the DRAC II address book, and any duplicate entries are overwritten with the entries from the DRAC II address book. Since importing the DRAC II address book, Bob always updates the IT Assistant Remote Access Address Book because IT Assistant will add, edit, and remove entries from the DRAC II address book automatically when users add, edit, and remove entries from the Remote Access Address Book.

Managing Address Book Entries

When IT Assistant discovers a server with a remote access controller, it automatically adds the server to the Remote Access Address Book using the IP address of the remote access controller. However, a system may not always be reachable by an IP address or be discoverable by IT Assistant. For this reason, administrators can manually create entries in the address book for all types of remote access controllers. If the IP address must be entered manually, there is most likely a configuration problem with IT Assistant or the management agents running on the managed server. Under proper conditions, IT Assistant should automatically find and add all the network interface card (NIC) connections to the address book.

To create a manual entry, administrators need to collect information about the system, including its unique name (if the system does not have a unique name, IT Assistant may overwrite an existing address book entry), type of remote-access controller (ERA, DRAC III, or DRAC II), and connection type (modem or NIC) (see Table 2). NIC entries require an IP address. For a modem, the following additional information may be necessary:

Phone number: If using DRAC III, make sure that the associated user is not configured to call back to a user-specified number; IT Assistant services cannot handle user-specified callbacks. The user must be set up to dial back a preset number or have no callback. PPP username (DRAC III only)PPP user password (DRAC III only)PPP authentication (DRAC III only): plain text, encrypted, or MSCHAP (Microsoft® Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol)

ERA DRAC III DRAC IIAutomatic Discovery2 X X X

Manual Discovery3 X X XNIC Connection X X XDial-In Connection X XDial-In PPP Security X

Table 2: Information needed for creating Remote Access Address Book Entries

2 IT Assistant will only discover the NIC connection to the remote hardware. 3 All types of remote hardware can be added manually into the address book but if the ip address has to be entered manually this generally indicates a configuration problem with IT Assistant or the management agents running on the Managed Node. Under correct proper conditions IT Assistant should automatically find and add all the remote hardware NIC connections to the address book. See the OpenManage Server Assistant or IT Assistant user guide for more information.

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After gathering this information, administrators can add an entry:1. Click the Add button in the upper left side of the address

book.2. Enter the server name in the new dialog box (see Figure 4).3. Select the remote-access controller type, which causes

additional configuration items to be displayed.4. Enter the relevant information for the connection type. If

the remote-access controller supports both modem and NIC connections, information for only one connection is necessary.

5. Click Save to store the entry in the IT Assistant database.6. Double-click the new entry to test the new connection. If

information for both modem and NIC connections is available, then IT Assistant will ask for the connection type to use when the Connect button is pressed. If available, the NIC connection is recommended because the remote console will perform better.

Figure 4: An Example of a DRAC III Address Book Entry

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Section 5DRAC II Integration

IT Assistant is the only application administrators can use to remotely configure the DRAC II card. The DRAC II management console is accessible through a Web-based interface, but it is installed on the management station instead of embedded in firmware. Consequently, IT Assistant must search for the DRAC II console when trying to connect to the remote DRAC II firmware. The DRAC II console requires the DRAC II address book to connect to the remote firmware. For automatic integration between the DRAC II and the IT Assistant address books, the DRAC II address book server must be installed on the computer that runs IT Assistant. Note that the DRAC II console can be installed on the remote computer separately from the address book server.

IT Assistant uses Application Associations to determine how to launch the DRAC II console. Administrators can configure Application Associations to point to a specific Web server or a local installation of the DRAC II console. By default, IT Assistant searches the local computer to see whether the DRAC II console is installed. If the console is not present on the local computer, and if IT Assistant is running through a Web server, it attempts to launch the DRAC II console from the Web server. As a final option, IT Assistant displays the Application Associations dialog box, which asks where the DRAC II console is installed. The launch settings are specific to the local computer and must be set up on each computer from which the DRAC II console will be launched. Once the launch settings have been manually set, IT Assistant does not attempt to search for the DRAC II console. To force IT Assistant to search for the DRAC II console on the local computer the next time a DRAC II connection is requested, reset the Application Associations settings:

1. Click ‘Application Associations’ under the ‘Management’ option in the IT Assistant left navigation bar.

2. Select ‘Remote Assistant’ and click ‘Edit’.3. Clear any text that is in the Edit box.4. Click ‘Save’.

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Section 6Conclusion

The tight integration between Dell OpenManage IT Assistant and Dell remote-access controllers offers increased flexibility and accessibility to Dell servers. Throughout the enterprise, organizations can use IT Assistant as a centralized console to manage all Dell servers equipped with different versions of remote-access controllers.

Authors

Manoj Gujarathi (Manoj_Gujarathi@dell.com) is a systems engineer in the Enterprise Software Development group at Dell Computer Corporation (http://www.dell.com/). Currently he works as a lead engineer for Dell OpenManage IT Assistant 6.x releases and Dell OpenManage Connections applications. Manoj has a Master’s in Engineering from Washington State University and Master’s in Computer Science from Texas Tech University. He is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer.

Marshal Savage is a software engineer in the Enterprise Software Development group at Dell Computer Corporation (http://www.dell.com). Marshal is currently a key contributor to the development of Dell OpenManage IT Assistant. Marshal has a BSE in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan.

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