Mailing List Archive

Michael Dolan wrote:

>The group managing the blade setup claims that the only way to access the
>'console' is through a web browser/java applet. This is quite cumbersome,
>slow, and requires a GUI environment. And worse yet, cant integrate into
>conserver :) Is there not a serial-like console access available to access
>the individual consoles of each blade?
>
This depends entirely on how HP have implemented the console access,
which means you will probably have to do some detective work (e.g.
sniffin the network, spying on the console client, etc.). If it is
IPMI, then see this:

http://buttersideup.com/docs/howto/IPMI_on_Debian.html

If it's not IPMI, then it's probably real serial lines, and you will
have to work out how to get at them..

Tim.

Considering that these are HP blades, it might be the case that they have reused their Secure Web Console software/hardware to provide the terminal access. I don't know what protocol this uses, but it's better than nothing for remote access, but not as good as conserver. Hopefully you'll be able to find out more if this is what it is using.

I hope that this helps,

Adam

-----Original Message-----
From: users-bounces@conserver.com [mailto:users-bounces@conserver.com]On
Behalf Of Tim Small
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2004 3:15 AM
To: Michael Dolan; users@conserver.com
Subject: Re: linux blades, serial access


Michael Dolan wrote:

>The group managing the blade setup claims that the only way to access the
>'console' is through a web browser/java applet. This is quite cumbersome,
>slow, and requires a GUI environment. And worse yet, cant integrate into
>conserver :) Is there not a serial-like console access available to access
>the individual consoles of each blade?
>
This depends entirely on how HP have implemented the console access,
which means you will probably have to do some detective work (e.g.
sniffin the network, spying on the console client, etc.). If it is
IPMI, then see this:

http://buttersideup.com/docs/howto/IPMI_on_Debian.html

If it's not IPMI, then it's probably real serial lines, and you will
have to work out how to get at them..

Tim.

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Adam.Morris@providence.org wrote:

>Considering that these are HP blades, it might be the case that they have reused their Secure Web Console software/hardware to provide the terminal access. I don't know what protocol this uses, but it's better than nothing for remote access, but not as good as conserver. Hopefully you'll be able to find out more if this is what it is using.
>
>
>
I've not used "Secure Web Console", but it may be that it is implemented
using IPMI, since according to HP:

"IPMI was initially co-developed by Hewlett-Packard and Intel ® and has
been enhanced by NEC and Dell."

It would be interesting to find out tho'...


Tim.

> Realizing they are all virtualized with in the blade chassis, the
> implementation is probably vendor dependent.

Yup.

As an alternate example, Sun's B1600 blade shelf has a system
controller which allows you to have remote telnet access to a serial
port on each blade. For the x86-based blades, the blade's BIOS will
talk to that serial port and the only tricky bit to setup is that you
need to set up a PXE-boot server such that the OS (solaris/linux/...)
netboot-based install comes up with the console on the serial port.

- Bill

On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 11:17:42 -0400 (EDT), Michael Dolan
<mtdolan@twinight.org> wrote:
> The group managing the blade setup claims that the only way to access the
> 'console' is through a web browser/java applet. This is quite cumbersome,
> slow, and requires a GUI environment. And worse yet, cant integrate into
> conserver :) Is there not a serial-like console access available to access
> the individual consoles of each blade?
<snip>
> Maybe what I'm looking for is a the telnet / ssh environment to access the
> blade chassis controller?
>
> At present, we are using HP's blade centers.

All of the ProLiant BL p-Class blades (BL20p, BL20pG2, BL30p) have iLO
(Integrated Lights Out) embedded management processors. iLO provides
a full remote graphical (and text) remote console as well as remote
virtual media (USB floppy/cd-rom emulation). iLO also supports a
"virtual serial port". For more information on iLO's capabilities
(which are quite numerous) please refer to this web page:

http://tinyurl.com/5qbcq

iLO supports both Telnet and SSH sessions for remote text consoles and
remote virtual serial consoles (which works a lot better for logging).
I've successfully configured conserver to front-end both types of
connections. A key thing to remember is that iLO is very
security-conscious and Telnet is disabled by default (since it is
unencrypted). You'll need to access the web page and enable it. If
you have a *lot* of blades, you can use an XML script to change iLO's
configuration (which is a lot easier than going to each blade).

The 1.60 version of iLO firmware also includes a command line
interface that is accessible from Telnet or SSH. The CLI provides
commands for controlling power, rebooting, turning the blue LED on or
off, etc.

I have some config files for conserver that use expect to automate the
login to iLO (for both remote video console sessions as well as remote
virtual serial console sessions). I'll be happy to send them to you
if you're interested. Better yet, maybe someone could put them on the
conserver website?

Regards,
John

John Cagle wrote:

>iLO supports both Telnet and SSH sessions for remote text consoles and
>remote virtual serial consoles (which works a lot better for logging).
> I've successfully configured conserver to front-end both types of
>connections. A key thing to remember is that iLO is very
>security-conscious and Telnet is disabled by default (since it is
>unencrypted).
>
It should be possible to use ssh from conserver (easy if the iLO
interface supports access with ssh keys, slightly more tricky otherwise)
- you could probably build something quite easily by modifying the files
(the solsession expect script, and the example conserver.cf) at:

http://buttersideup.com/docs/howto/IPMI_on_Debian_files/

If anyone manages this, it would be cool if they could post the results
somewhere - I'm going to have to write such scripts for HP iLO boxes
myself in a couple of weeks' time for some new HP servers...

BTW, I'm happy for the IPMI SOL stuff that I wrote, to go into the
contrib/ directory if it's useful - if the licensing (GPL) is a problem,
I'm happy to BSD
dual-license it.

Tim.