Hi, welcome to our iDRAC training series. In this video
we'll be covering how to troubleshoot connectivity problems with the iDRAC.
The first troubleshooting step starts with asking a few basic questions. Let's take a look at the
ones below. Can you ping the iDRAC? This will let us know if we have that very basic connectivity.
We should also keep in mind that ping is a requirement by many monitoring tools,
an example would be if discovery of the device fails but you can access the web interface.
Next would be do other remote protocols respond? This would be things like PuTTY or another SSH
software. This would be helpful to know if say the web interface is not responding.
Next would be are the fans spinning at one hundred percent. You may get a customer complaining that
the server suddenly has very loud fans that can lead us to our next question which would be do we
get an error on post about initialization? If we see this message that is a clear indicator
that we have some kind of internal issue with the iDRAC. If we can get to the iDRAC web page
one of the first things to try is an iDRAC reset as a reboot will often resolve a lot of issues.
If we can't get to the web page and we are getting initialization errors we need to have the customer
drain flea power. To do this we need to unplug the server from power for about 5 minutes, plug the
system back in, and check to see if we still have initialization errors or problems with the iDRAC.
The next troubleshooting steps would be to check the iDRAC configuration.
The first thing we'll try is connecting to the iDRAC CLI and running racadm getniccfg.
Here we can see the link detected status, which NIC is in use, as well as the IP configuration.
Next run the command get idrac.nic.vlanenable to see if a VLAN may be incorrectly configured.
Next let's take a look at the BIOS menu settings
for the iDRAC from the f2 system setup menu. Click on iDRAC settings
from the settings menu, click on the network section.
Here we can view the same settings as before from the SSH console.
We can configure the NIC selection as well as scroll down to see the ipconfig.
If we scroll to the bottom we can also see
VLAN settings and verify that they are configured correctly.
The next option is to collect a TSR otherwise known as the SupportAssist collection.
Click on maintenance, SupportAssist, then start a collection on the data to collect.
It is often helpful to ensure the debug logs box is checked.
Once your selections are complete click the collect button.
This will take a few minutes to complete. If debug logs were checked
this could take 10 to 15 minutes to finish. Once complete save the bundle to the desktop.
Once the bundle has been downloaded drag it to the Tesseract program
or you can extract and view the html inside.
Click on summary and choose the raw option.
From here we can do a search for IPv4.
Now we can check and see what IP address is listed either under static or DHCP.
We can confirm the IP address the gateway and the net mask.
now let's try searching for NIC.1.
We can check for the active NIC section and see if it's enabled.
If we scroll down we can also check the VLAN ID and see if the VLAN is enabled.
If the config looks good, or if the active NIC does not match the NIC selection,
reboot the iDRAC by either running the RACADM command
racreset or hold the i button for 15 seconds if someone is on site.
Now let's look at some key steps to narrow down the issue. First would be can the iDRAC ping the
gateway? To test this you could connect to the iDRAC through SSH and run the command RACADM ping
and then type the appropriate address needed. Next does the iDRAC work from a second system?
Often the issue is with the local workstation we are trying to connect from.
It could be a browser issue, a permissions issue or other network problems. Something else to ask
is are the link lights active on the iDRAC port? You would have to have someone on site to verify
this, but it can help confirm if the NIC is showing any signs of power or connectivity.
What happens if we change the iDRAC port? It's possible that one of the ports has simply failed.
By changing which port the iDRAC communicates on we can confirm if the issue is isolated
to a single network port, or if there's something else going on with the system.
Last on our list does iDRAC direct or plugging directly into a laptop provide access?
Often we are faced with issues beyond our control in the customer's network.
It could be a routing issue, or a firewall between sites blocking communication. If we cannot get to
the iDRAC from a remote system we need to try testing locally through a direct connection to
the iDRAC. If needed we could also reset the iDRAC or do further testing while on site.
I'll start off this last section by covering a less seen issue where the iDRAC web server is not
enabled. This can sometimes happen when the iDRAC is misconfigured in an attempt to increase network
security. Connect to the iDRAC through SSH and type the RACADM command get idrac.webserver. We
can see from the output that the enable attribute is set to disabled, that is why SSH works but the
web browser does not. To resolve this type the RACADM command set idrac.webserver.enable enabled.
Now we can see that the web server is enabled.
If we refresh our browser we can now connect to the web page.
Now let's take a look at some of our last resort options.
If we are left with wiping the config of the iDRAC, but we still have connectivity to it
then we can run the RACADM command rackresetcfg. Now if we have a 13th generation system
this will reset everything to factory settings. If we are looking at the more current 14th generation
it will reset everything except for the network and root user accounts.
If you would like to do this that is when you will need to add the optional rc switch to the end.
The next option we have is to power cycle the server and then choose the f10 boot option so that
we boot to the lifecycle controller. Once there we need to choose the hardware configuration menu,
then choose repurpose or retire system. From here we can see that there are multiple options
to be reset. We can just choose the iDRAC one and click next.
The third option we have is to boot to the f2 BIOS menu. From here we choose iDRAC settings,
we then scroll to the bottom of the page.
This is a 14th generation system so we see the two different reset options.
This last option is to utilize the lc wipe method this is essentially a retire and
repurpose that is sent to the iDRAC remotely all systems will be reset to factory settings
not just the iDRAC a backup of the customer's configuration and a downloaded copy of their
iDRAC license will be needed it would be wise to always have this data when utilizing a reset
but specifically with the LCWipe option. It will delete the license from the system.
In order for this to work we need a windows system that can reach the iDRAC remotely.
Type the below winrm command. You will need to replace the items in brackets with the correct
username, password and iDRAC IP. Once this is sent to the iDRAC it will take
approximately 10 minutes for the system to finish resetting and rebooting the host.
Thank you for taking the time to review this video on troubleshooting connectivity for the iDRAC.