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Server BMCs can need to be rebooted every so often

utcc.utoronto.ca

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Re: Server BMCs can need to be rebooted every so often

#21

Post by arcticgeek »

dveeden2 wrote: post #17
arcticgeek wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have various Supermicro boards in production at work with BMCs from 2018 or so. The ATEN iKVM on them works just fine with a recent OpenJDK 11 and OpenWebStart. I’ve found that all the features work including mounting ISOs and doing remote upgrades. No need to whine about installing anything ancient or spreading ridiculous Java FUD.

With current browsers Java applets are not supported anymore. Some older HPE systems the didn't update the firmware to provide alternatives. I've seen multiple vendors with problematic code that didn't work with newer Java versions. This is by no means meant to bash Java. Some non-Java BMCs can be horrible as well (e.g. require many TCP ports in a firewall/tunnel unfriendly way or require SSH with old algorithms that…

I‘ve really only had experience with Supermicro BMCs but I totally believe you that there are lots of crufty OOB environments in the wild which are hard to work with. While it’s true that applets don’t work anymore (probably a good thing), and therefore the experience isn‘t as integrated or seemless as it once was, it’s a practical matter to just log into the BMC and click on the console preview, using the JNLP file to launch the console via OpenWebStart as an independent application outside of the browser. One other thing is that the self signed certs from these older implementations are often expired and therefore throw an extra warning or two when you launch these interfaces, but you just click through them and carry on.

Re: Server BMCs can need to be rebooted every so often

#22

Post by dijit »

arcticgeek wrote: post #15
kube-system wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am honestly surprised how bad many of these are, and in production, no less. I recently set up a supermicro system and spent a whole day just trying to figure out what to install to get the stupid ancient Java crap to load so I could mount an ISO.

We have various Supermicro boards in production at work with BMCs from 2018 or so. The ATEN iKVM on them works just fine with a recent OpenJDK 11 and OpenWebStart. I’ve found that all the features work including mounting ISOs and doing remote upgrades. No need to whine about installing anything ancient or spreading ridiculous Java FUD.

Happy for you.

Sysadmin for 15 years here though, Java was always a problem. The version wasn't always the worst bit, but it was always an exercise in frustration.

Mostly security controls to blame, but I have had so many issues across so many systems that I cannot stand by and let you claim this is FUD about Java.

the .NET applets are also a problem (because who has a compatible IE version?), but they worked more consistently than the Java ones back in the day.

The HTML5 ones are the only ones that seem to work consistently; but that could be biased as HTML5 is much newer, so BMCs implementing that might be updated with more regularity. (or be more modern hardware)

Re: Server BMCs can need to be rebooted every so often

#23

Post by nineteen999 »

maltris wrote: post #13

Experiences with iDRAC 6, 7, 8 have been terrible. After high runtime they stop to respond via HTTP and SNMP, its just rubbish. Reboot of BMC helped Sometimes, sometimes only a powerdrain. Back then even the ProSupport could not do much, they support a system unsupported by their devs. The latest iDRACs (with the fancy blue GUI) work a little better. I have no numbers to back all that, its just a feeling, maybe the p…

Cisco UCS CIMC is unreliable as well. iLO has the been the most stable out of the three for me.

Re: Server BMCs can need to be rebooted every so often

#25

Post by themoonisachees »

A few years ago i worked as a grunt for a fleet-wide ESXi upgrade and we took the occasion to update iDRAC. The number one step in the procedure was to reboot iDRAC, no matter how good its state looked. I have never ever seen both a high uptime and completely functional iDRAC at the same time, across 200~ servers.

Re: Server BMCs can need to be rebooted every so often

#26

Post by themoonisachees »

roughly wrote: post #9

Someone once told me that nobody ever returned a server because the BMC sucked too much, and that says everything you need to know about BMCs. Incidentally, at a previous gig, the software that handled issuing BMC commands had a BMC reboot as the first step in any script it ran.

Not returned, but i've seen clients refuse to go with HP again because iLO sucked too much and come upgrade time went Dell. Unfortunately for them right around the time iLO got okay-ish and iDRAC got shitty.

Re: Server BMCs can need to be rebooted every so often

#27

Post by justsomehnguy »

themoonisachees wrote: post #25

A few years ago i worked as a grunt for a fleet-wide ESXi upgrade and we took the occasion to update iDRAC. The number one step in the procedure was to reboot iDRAC, no matter how good its state looked. I have never ever seen both a high uptime and completely functional iDRAC at the same time, across 200~ servers.

Yep. And I still think I borked one iDRAC precisely because I ignored the reboot, because it worked fine on its identical twin sitting right next to it.

Re: Server BMCs can need to be rebooted every so often

#29

Post by justsomehnguy »

chenxiaolong wrote: post #16

BMCs have to be some of the most unreliable devices that I've worked with. Some of the issues I encountered at my last job: * [ASRock BMC] The BMC firmware updater sometimes causes the NICs to get stuck in a bad state where every NIC has the same MAC address. This can be resolved via a proprietary UEFI application for reflashing the correct MAC address. * [Dell iDRAC] Local authentication randomly stops working due t…

> * [Supermicro BMC] The BIOS update sometimes doesn't fully upload, but claims that it did.

Or uploads it to the WebGUI but balks with a different errors. Flash with SUM from SuperDoctor

    SET IP=192.168.128.20
    SET USER=ADMIN
    SET PASS=ADMIN
    .\SUM -i %IP% -u %USER% -p %PASS% -c UpdateBios --file E:\Shares\Temp\x10sle-f\bios.bin --force_update --reboot
    .\SUM -i %IP% -u %USER% -p %PASS% -c GetBmcInfo
* [Supermicro BMC] BMC on a dedictated Ethernet port get moved to the Shared LAN port on the blade reboot. Which also means what if did shutdown the machine then you no longer can power up it remotely.

Re: Server BMCs can need to be rebooted every so often

#30

Post by amluto »

jebr224 wrote: post #28

I do development on openbmc ( https://github.com/openbmc/openbmc ) which is an open source bmc implantation using bitbake, primarily targeted to aspeed, and nuvoton bmc chips.

Can a mere mortal usefully deploy openbmc on a small number of servers?
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