Dell C6100 XS23-TY3 2U 4-Node (8 CPU) one node BMC works other 3 not so much.

[Glenn]

I have a C6100 that I bought a few years ago. It's a workhorse. Lately however I have come to require setting up the BMC for management. All of my nodes are the same XS23-TY3 with the same Bios 08.00.16. Their BMC firmware is 1:14 and the BMC bios is 1.44. I can log into the BMC server on one of the nodes but on the other three not so much. I've done a fair bit of IPMI testing and all three seem to indicate that the BMC lan is turned off. SSH is also not enabled on these three. I've gone through a lot of reading that says to turn on the lan in the BIOS setup under SYSTEM. My BIOS on these nodes does not have that option.
Does anyone have a possible solution for the three nodes that are not functioning. I don't believe that they need a firmware reload, just an enabling of the lan.
Thanks very much.
Glenn

 

[Chris1234]

I have a C6100 that I bought a few years ago. It's a workhorse. Lately however I have come to require setting up the BMC for management. All of my nodes are the same XS23-TY3 with the same Bios 08.00.16. Their BMC firmware is 1:14 and the BMC bios is 1.44. I can log into the BMC server on one of the nodes but on the other three not so much. I've done a fair bit of IPMI testing and all three seem to indicate that the BMC lan is turned off. SSH is also not enabled on these three. I've gone through a lot of reading that says to turn on the lan in the BIOS setup under SYSTEM. My BIOS on these nodes does not have that option.
Does anyone have a possible solution for the three nodes that are not functioning. I don't believe that they need a firmware reload, just an enabling of the lan.
Thanks very much.
Glenn

It's a bit dated, but I just picked up a c6100 and have fought off some similar issues. When your 3 nodes that don't work boot does it show a bios version AND a BMC firmware version? I just had to do some wrangling with updates to get mine to work. I had to update the BIOS to 1.71, then the BMC to 1.33, first with socflash then kcsflash. Only then could I update to BIOS 1.81, and use bmcflash. I had to do something similar with the FMC firmware. Had to go to 1.18 then 1.20.

 

[Glenn]

Thanks for the reply Chris. I just checked one of my blades and the Bios is 1.44 while the BMC Is 1.14. I think you may be on to something here. Where did you get the 1.81 bios? This gives me hope for getting the BMC to work finally. Thanks again. Sorry. Ignore question about 1.81 bios. Got it downloaded now.

 

[Chris1234]

I used this package to get the bios to 1.71 and bmc to 1.33:
How To: Update a Dell C6100 DCS Node (BIOS & BCM) - Server Network Tech

I then could use the dell official bios and bmc to update fully. I used the socflash then bmcflash from a freedos bootable usb. Rebooted and unplugged between.

 

[Glenn]

Great!!! Thanks. Just to finish up. Where did you download freedos from?

 

[Chris1234]

Their site.

 

[Glenn]

Their site.

Chris:
I finally got around to upgrading my BIOS and BMC according to your instructions. I must say that they worked flawlessly and now I have updated BIOS and BMC.
One thing I did not do was upgrade the BIOS to 1.81. I found a bios file called 1.71 which included the iPXE code so I can now run iPXE rather than the old PXE boot.
So thanks very much to your help. Much appreciated.
Glenn.

 

[Chris1234]

Chris:
I finally got around to upgrading my BIOS and BMC according to your instructions. I must say that they worked flawlessly and now I have updated BIOS and BMC.
One thing I did not do was upgrade the BIOS to 1.81. I found a bios file called 1.71 which included the iPXE code so I can now run iPXE rather than the old PXE boot.
So thanks very much to your help. Much appreciated.
Glenn.

Awesome. Glad it worked for you.