Take a look at this post. There is a jumper on the backplane that you can enable to get HDD activity LEDs to work with any add-in controller. Not sure how the LEDs react to a drive failure; you can "simulate" a failure and see what happens!
Dell C6100 XS23-TY3 2U 4-Node (8 CPU) Cloud Server
- Thread starter Patrick
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Very interesting. I will find that useful too as all my drives run off LSI cards and i dont have the correct cables lolTake a look at this post. There is a jumper on the backplane that you can enable to get HDD activity LEDs to work with any add-in controller. Not sure how the LEDs react to a drive failure; you can "simulate" a failure and see what happens!
That's interesting. I'm rather exhausted right now, but I am going to reboot node 1 tomorrow and check it.Take a look at this post. There is a jumper on the backplane that you can enable to get HDD activity LEDs to work with any add-in controller. Not sure how the LEDs react to a drive failure; you can "simulate" a failure and see what happens!
I have drive activity lights already. I'm going to pull it and check that jumper as well as boot into the SAS utility and run verify on my hot spare to see if the light changes color. I figured it couldn't, but maybe it can.
Got my hardware assembled tonight. Next step, scrounge up a monitor and keyboard and start working on software...
Its quite simple to access the remote management console.
Once you determine the IP address of your nodes remote management nic, you can simple type in the IP to your browser, and log in with the default login:
Username: root
Password: root
Once your in, you can change that login info, but..that should be the default info.
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jared
Once you determine the IP address of your nodes remote management nic, you can simple type in the IP to your browser, and log in with the default login:
Username: root
Password: root
Once your in, you can change that login info, but..that should be the default info.
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jared
I have a question myself. I'm using a LSI 9240-8i with raid 5 on my primary node. It appears that it needs special wires to connect to the backplane (?) so it can control the HDD lights. Is this available or should I be looking for a software solution for RAID drive failure alerts?
In retrospect, I wish I had gone with another mezz card instead of the PCIE card. I could have used Raid 1E instead of raid 5, and the cables I ordered were too long so it's restricting airflow.
Linux software raid would almost certainly be more efficient than the Intel fake raid anyway.
If raid 0/1/1E will work for you, there are cheap solutions with the mezzanine card available. Unless you are putting many disks on, raid 5 isn't going to be much more efficient for space if I understand correctly. Raid 6 gives protection from 2 drives going out at the same exact moment, but raid 5 + 1HS can protect against two in relatively short order.
Well, soon here I should have about 6 of these in raid 5 ...i think.
My raid card is on its way, so once I am able to plug these in, ill get a couple more to add to it.
My seller is giving me grief.
After some poking around, I decided to update the bios and various firmware on all my nodes.
Sadly, I noticed that 2 of my nodes are "non-descript" they have no service tag in the bios, and no asset tags in the remote management console.
There is no way to safely find out what they are in order to update them.
I called the seller and he told me that dells sends them chassis that have mixed nodes in there, which according to him explains why all the bios and firmware have different versions in all my nodes.
I tried explaining to him that doesn't seem right. Typically as seen with my nodes that have service tags in the bios, it should be in this format
ServiceTag.1 for node 1
ServiceTag.2 for node 2
ServiceTag.3 for node 3
ServiceTag.4 for node 4
Even the remote management software is different, 2 of them use Megatrends firmware, and the other 2 that are service tagged use dells remote management software...kinda odd.
So currently i have 2 nodes that are tagged and 2 that are anonymous.
My seller agreed to send me nodes that have service tags on them (although I really wish i had the originals), if i send him back the 2 "non-descript" nodes ( at my cost...aarrg).
But at lease 2 different sets of service tags is much safer that trying to update something that is random and unknown.
I cant argue with the seller though, because im not sure, maybe dell did send them mixed bios nodes?
After some poking around, I decided to update the bios and various firmware on all my nodes.
Sadly, I noticed that 2 of my nodes are "non-descript" they have no service tag in the bios, and no asset tags in the remote management console.
There is no way to safely find out what they are in order to update them.
I called the seller and he told me that dells sends them chassis that have mixed nodes in there, which according to him explains why all the bios and firmware have different versions in all my nodes.
I tried explaining to him that doesn't seem right. Typically as seen with my nodes that have service tags in the bios, it should be in this format
ServiceTag.1 for node 1
ServiceTag.2 for node 2
ServiceTag.3 for node 3
ServiceTag.4 for node 4
Even the remote management software is different, 2 of them use Megatrends firmware, and the other 2 that are service tagged use dells remote management software...kinda odd.
So currently i have 2 nodes that are tagged and 2 that are anonymous.
My seller agreed to send me nodes that have service tags on them (although I really wish i had the originals), if i send him back the 2 "non-descript" nodes ( at my cost...aarrg).
But at lease 2 different sets of service tags is much safer that trying to update something that is random and unknown.
I cant argue with the seller though, because im not sure, maybe dell did send them mixed bios nodes?
What kind of CPU temps are you guys seeing on yours? Mine are very high at around 60C and thats with pretty much no load. All fans seem to be running fine and the server is just down in my basement where its about 68F. I think the server has even rebooted a few times due to the high temps.
Will do later this week. Have a speaking engagement in San Francisco this week which is putting me under a bit more load than normal. If someone can send me the links (so I don't have to hunt) can get this done faster.
Has anyone else noticed beyond-terrible mouse-emulation in the BMC remote console? When navigating through the BIOS or a server without a GUI (just a console), it works fine. But, if you boot into Windows on a node and attempt to use the mouse, the mouse lags uncontrollably. Using the keyboard is still completely lag-free though. Is there some mouse driver or something weird I need to install/configure in the OS?
Depending on OS (and as it turns out BMC vendor) you need to play with the settings for enhancing mouse accuracy. Turns out Windows likes one setting, Linux another.
Ok Cool, well in that case I feel more confident then, and will simply flash these myself instead of sending these nodes back to the seller to exchange for "service tagged" ones.
But before I do, I assume this includes the bios and everything else?
Thanks Patrick you Rock!
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Hi MACscr
Those are actually just about the nominal temps for these cpus. CPU temps were discussed earlier in this thread, ..cant remember how far back though.
These run really hot normally. If I remember correctly I think it was the the 80-90s with no load where you start to wonder whats happening.
But the important part is that you are able to get into the management console or in the BIOS and check the logs to see if the server actually is complaining of high temps.
If the server IS rebooting to that, which i find odd, then there might be something else going on there....however if your not sure, check the airflow I would think, as this is especially an issue for individuals who tend to "piecemeal" their servers ( like I do haha) and often the wrong sata cables cause issues blocking air..etc
Search Dell poweredge C6100 images in google, and see if yours looks different than the standard node setup.
Make sure your logs tell you whether or not your server is rebooting due to the high temps.
Hi all! This thread is *most excellent*, a perfect repository of all the important stuff one needs to know before buying one of these strange and wonderful beasts.
I'm loving mine so far, however...
Does anyone off hand know any information about the "DCS" nodes? I purchased a c6100 from an ebay seller, and received 3 alike nodes which work perfectly, however the fourth node appears to be different from the rest.
I've had my C6100 for a month or so now, and I'm fairly certain the ebay seller isn't going to want to exchange nodes with me (and I'm already using this node in production... yes, silly me)
For starters, it only has 3 SATA ports, no mezzanine card slot, and (the kicker) IPMI does not appear to allow me to use the remote console.
I've been told that what I have is a "DCS" node, which apparently was built to spec for it's previous owner.
All nodes came out of the box with 1.32 BMC firmware loaded, and I was able to get most of them up and running just fine (with the exception of one unrelated node not allowing me to set the IP address, I reflashed the firmware with the DOS KCSFlash utility and used the "-c 0" option to delete the configuration).
However, this last node won't let me launch the Java console. The button is grayed out / disabled. If I edit the HTML page or use Chrome's javascript console to do "mainFrame.doLaunchJava()" I get the console to come up, however I can only see video. Mouse and keyboard do not work.
Upon further debugging, it appears that the BIOS does not even see the virtual keyboard/mouse that the BMC presents under normal circumstances.
This appears to be similar to this post: Dell C6100 IPMI / BMC remote console "greyed out" - Colocation and Data Centers - Web Hosting Talk
and http://forums.servethehome.com/processors-motherboards/2191-c6100-dcs-no-remote-console.html
In the first thread I've linked to, the solution appears to be to downgrade the IPMI firmware to 1.11, which I cannot find for the life of me.
Does anyone happen to have a link or a backup of 1.11 available somewhere I can download it?
I'm curious to see if this results in an easy fix for my issues.
If not, I've got the 1.32 firmware extracted, and I've separated the rootfs and www filesystems. It looks like you can actually enable SSH support to the BMC chip by sending a proper raw command via IPMITool which I have yet to fully figure out.
(If anyone's playing along at home, the files I'm looking at are in /usr/local/lib/libdell.so.0 , export "TelnetSSHRedirectCommand")
On boot, the system starts SSH and Telnet servers, however it adds a firewall rule to deny telnet and ssh access (confirm by running nmap against node IP).
Once I manage to get SSH access, it looks like I can simply do "modprobe usbe" to get the virtual USB devices to show up.
I'm 1000% sure this chip can physically do iKVM, since I can see video, just not mouse/keyboard, and Aspeed lists the chip as having virtual media capability which would imply USB endpoint support.
Any additional insight would be awesome! Thanks everyone for this useful thread!
EDIT: I now have SSH access for SOL, which is nice, but not exactly optimal (KVM would be best)
I got it to work with the following commands:
I might be able to break out of the SMASH CLI and get into maintenance mode to load the proper drivers for iKVM... I'm still curious if the older 1.11 firmware works though...
I'm loving mine so far, however...
Does anyone off hand know any information about the "DCS" nodes? I purchased a c6100 from an ebay seller, and received 3 alike nodes which work perfectly, however the fourth node appears to be different from the rest.
I've had my C6100 for a month or so now, and I'm fairly certain the ebay seller isn't going to want to exchange nodes with me (and I'm already using this node in production... yes, silly me)
For starters, it only has 3 SATA ports, no mezzanine card slot, and (the kicker) IPMI does not appear to allow me to use the remote console.
I've been told that what I have is a "DCS" node, which apparently was built to spec for it's previous owner.
All nodes came out of the box with 1.32 BMC firmware loaded, and I was able to get most of them up and running just fine (with the exception of one unrelated node not allowing me to set the IP address, I reflashed the firmware with the DOS KCSFlash utility and used the "-c 0" option to delete the configuration).
However, this last node won't let me launch the Java console. The button is grayed out / disabled. If I edit the HTML page or use Chrome's javascript console to do "mainFrame.doLaunchJava()" I get the console to come up, however I can only see video. Mouse and keyboard do not work.
Upon further debugging, it appears that the BIOS does not even see the virtual keyboard/mouse that the BMC presents under normal circumstances.
This appears to be similar to this post: Dell C6100 IPMI / BMC remote console "greyed out" - Colocation and Data Centers - Web Hosting Talk
and http://forums.servethehome.com/processors-motherboards/2191-c6100-dcs-no-remote-console.html
In the first thread I've linked to, the solution appears to be to downgrade the IPMI firmware to 1.11, which I cannot find for the life of me.
Does anyone happen to have a link or a backup of 1.11 available somewhere I can download it?
I'm curious to see if this results in an easy fix for my issues.
If not, I've got the 1.32 firmware extracted, and I've separated the rootfs and www filesystems. It looks like you can actually enable SSH support to the BMC chip by sending a proper raw command via IPMITool which I have yet to fully figure out.
(If anyone's playing along at home, the files I'm looking at are in /usr/local/lib/libdell.so.0 , export "TelnetSSHRedirectCommand")
On boot, the system starts SSH and Telnet servers, however it adds a firewall rule to deny telnet and ssh access (confirm by running nmap against node IP).
Once I manage to get SSH access, it looks like I can simply do "modprobe usbe" to get the virtual USB devices to show up.
I'm 1000% sure this chip can physically do iKVM, since I can see video, just not mouse/keyboard, and Aspeed lists the chip as having virtual media capability which would imply USB endpoint support.
Any additional insight would be awesome! Thanks everyone for this useful thread!
EDIT: I now have SSH access for SOL, which is nice, but not exactly optimal (KVM would be best)
I got it to work with the following commands:
Code:
# Enable SSH service
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x01
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x03 0x<response from last command> 0x04 0x01 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x01 0x00
# Enable SOL redirection
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x01
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x03 0x<response from last command> 0x03 0x02 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x01 0x01
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Wow, looks like you got your hands full there...
DCS tend to be a little on the unpredictable side when it comes to dealing with the firmware and so on. If i understand correctly its easy to "brick" nodes when dealing with DCS. Dell support themselves wont even touch a DCS model. However they would be happy to send you over to the DCS department. I just happen to have a rep name and number if you want to give them a shot. His name is Robert Michael and his number should be (512) 724-6773. I have yet to talk to him though so I am not sure how far he might be able to help with this. make sure you do have your DCS express # on hand..its all numbers not letters.
As for all firmware updates and including historical ones... this is linked at the front of the thread. It might help, but keep in mind, there is a risk in this situation. More so for me as you seem to know what your dealing with a lot more.
Drivers for PowerEdge C6100
Hope this helps, and I am sure others on this thread might have a better answer.
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Jared