Dell Lifecycle Controller Remote Services v2.10.10.
Notes, cautions, and warnings NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your computer. CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data and tells you how to avoid the problem. WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death. Copyright © 2015 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws.
Contents 1 Introduction........................................................................................................... 5 Benefits of using iDRAC with Lifecycle Controller...............................................................................5 Key features........................................................................................................................................... 6 What’s new in this release?....................................................................
Server profile — export or import.................................................................................................20 Server license — import................................................................................................................ 20 Auto discovery...............................................................................................................................20 Retire or repurpose the server..................................................................
Introduction 1 Dell Lifecycle Controller provides advanced embedded systems management to perform systems management tasks such as deploy, configure, update, maintain, and diagnose. It is delivered as part of integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) out-of-band solution and embedded Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) applications in the latest Dell servers.
Operating System device drivers directly on the server. This eliminates the media-based system management tools and utilities traditionally needed for systems management. The benefits include: • Increased Uptime — Early notification of potential or actual failures that help prevent a server failure or reduce recovery time after a failure.
• • • • • • Delete server-related information View the managed system using Physical Computer System View Manage the web server certificate Configure the USB management port View embedded tech support report to resolve business-critical issues Configure storage devices in real time • Replace motherboard using Import Server Profile feature • Support for PCIeSSD devices What’s new in this release? The new features for this release include: • Support for the following Dell PowerEdge systems: – – – – Po
It was delivered as part of the iDRAC (Express and Enterprise licenses, and vFlash SD card feature) starting with the 11th generation of Dell PowerEdge servers. On 12th and 13th generation of PowerEdge servers, the vFlash feature is included with the iDRAC Enterprise license, so you need not separately license vFlash with Lifecycle Controller 2.0 and later. The 12th and 13th generation of PowerEdge servers of Dell use only Express or Enterprise licensing.
Lifecycle controller also supports local one-to-one system management tasks through a graphical user interface (GUI) using the server’s KVM or the Virtual Console in iDRAC for operating system installation, updates, configuration, and for running diagnostics on single and local servers. This eliminates the need for multiple option ROMs for hardware configuration. For more information, see Lifecycle Controller User’s Guide, available at delltechcenter.com/lc.
• The WS-MAN profile documents available at Dell TechCenter (delltechcenter.com/lc) provides detailed information about the WS-Man commands used to perform Lifecycle Controller related tasks. • The Lifecycle Controller Release Notes provides last-minute updates to the system or documentation or advanced technical reference material intended for experienced users or technicians. • The iDRAC User’s Guide available at Dell TechCenter (delltechcenter.
4. Select the appropriate service or support link based on your need.
Remote Services Features 2 Using Lifecycle Controller-Remote Services, you can perform the following operations: • • • • Deploy and Configure Monitor Maintain Create and schedule jobs Deployment and configuration Using various Lifecycle Controller-Remote Services' capabilities, you can perform different configurations on a system throughout its lifecycle. You can perform operations such as BIOS, iDRAC, RAID, and NIC configurations, and operating system deployment on the system.
controller properties and attributes are divided into views to provide a simple methodology for the clients to query the iDRAC views and set the iDRAC attributes. You can perform the following operations: • Retrieve current iDRAC configuration and inventory • Get and set any configurable iDRAC attribute • Manage iDRAC user accounts RAID configuration The RAID configuration feature is used to manage the properties and capabilities of the RAID storage.
NOTE: On Dell’s 13th generation PowerEdge server, you can now perform all RAID configuration jobs in real-time without rebooting the host. For more information on RAID configuration, see the SimpleRaid profile document available at en.community.dell.com/techcenter/systems-management/w/wiki/1906.dcim-library-profile.aspx. Also, see the iDRAC User’s Guide available at dell.com/esmmanuals.
• Deploy operating system on iSCSI and FCoE LUN. Near Field Communication (NFC) using the QuickSync feature Using the QuickSync feature, you can: • View basic server information such as Service Tag, MAC address, NIC data, firmware versions, operating system, and so on. • View log and monitoring information of a server. • Configure network parameters of a server. After viewing or editing the information, you can troubleshoot or configure using a mobile device.
Configuring USB management port On the 13th generation of PowerEdge servers monitored by iDRAC, you can perform the following functions on a USB port and USB drive: • Manage the status of the server’s USB management port. If the status is disabled, iDRAC does not process a USB device or host connected to the managed USB port. • Configure the USB Management Port Mode to determine whether the USB port is used by iDRAC or the operating system.
Easy Restore and Part Replacement will not contain the latest information when CSIOR is disabled. Inband tools such as OMSA and DTK cannot configure BIOS when CSIOR is disabled. Also, system information reported from out-of-band interfaces such as WS-MAN and RACADM may not have correct information. Hardware inventory The hardware inventory information is cached on the persistent storage of Lifecycle Controller and is available to iDRAC and UEFI applications.
• User login to any iDRAC interface For more information about Event and Error Messages, see the Dell Event Message Reference Guide available at dell.com/support/home. System event log The Lifecycle Log contains events related to system, storage devices, network devices, firmware updates, configuration changes, license messages, and so on. However, the system events are also available as a separate log called the System Event Log (SEL).
Out-of-band server performance monitoring Using this feature, you can monitor the performance index of CPU, memory, and I/O. Intel ME supports Compute Usage Per Second (CUPS) functionality for monitoring the performance. The monitoring is independent of the OS and does not use CPU resources. The Intel ME displays a platform CUPS sensor that provides the Computation, Memory and I/O resource utilization value in the form of a platform “CUPS Index”.
For more information about automatic update, see Automatic Updates in Dell PowerEdge 12th Generation Servers white paper available at Dell TechCenter. Part replacement The Part Replacement feature is used to automatically update a firmware, configuration, or both for a newly replaced component, such as a RAID controller, NIC, or power supply, to match with the original part. It is a licensed feature that is enabled by default.
Retire or repurpose the server By using the Retire or Repurpose feature, the server-related data such as system configuration, logs, PowerEdge RAID Controller Non-Volatile (PERC NV) cache (if available), and other data that are stored on a server can be deleted. iDRAC license cannot be deleted by using this feature. Log in to the Lifecycle Controller first, and then enter BIOS setup password to use this feature. You can select components based on your requirement.
• Directly enumerate the CIM_PhysicalComputerSystem from the console without any prior knowledge of a particular class. • Use a registered profile to enumerate the implemented features. • Invoke certain method based on implemented features. For more information about viewing the managed computer system using PCSV, see the Physical Computer System View profile document available at en.community.dell.com/techcenter/systemsmanagement/w/wiki/1906.dcim-library-profile.aspx.
System-created jobs User-created jobs • • • • • vFlash (Attach Partition) vFlash (Detach Partition) vFlash (Export Data from Partition) vFlash (Create Partition using Image) Reboot System status This feature is used to remotely obtain the overall Remote Services API status that includes both the host system status and as well as the remote services (Data Manager) status. The overall status is displayed in the Status output parameter.
Getting started with API collateral and links 3 Getting started with any feature of Lifecycle Controller begins at the Dell TechCenter Lifecycle Controller home page — delltechcenter.com/LC. The home page contains various sections that reference URLs, and these referenced URLs are direct links to the corresponding sections. You can follow these steps to get started using the Lifecycle Controller API: 1. Identify the feature or the required management operation. 2.
Profile Name Description Base Server and Physical Asset The Base Server Profile is the autonomous profile that defines the classes used to describe basic server hardware and its related software. BIOS and Boot Management The BIOS and Boot Management Profile extends the management capabilities of referencing profiles by adding the capability to represent the configuration of the system BIOS setup and to manage the boot of the system.
Profile Name Description The DCIM_LCService. ExportHealthReport() method is used to collect the EHR. That is, hardware, operating system and application data, compress the zip file, and then to save in to the respective remote share path (cifs/nfs ). The DCIM_LCService.ImportSystemConfigurationPreview() method is used to preview the results of the application of the XML template ahead of the actual application without any restart. It also gives the information about the failure.
Profile Name Description Physical Computer This profile includes a specification of the physical computer system view, extrinsic System View methods for management operations, and its associated relationships. Power State Management The Power State Management Profile describes the classes, associations, properties, and methods used to manage the power of a system.
Profile Name Description Simple Raid The profile extends the management capabilities to represent the configuration of RAID storage. The RAID storage is modeled as collections of attributes for the storage adaptors, physical disks, logical disks, end enclosures, and parent-child relationships between the collections.
MOF WSDL and XSD API definitions A complement to the profile documentation is the Managed Object File (MOF) that documents the class implementation of the Dell-specific CIM classes. Web Service Description Language (WSDL) and XML Schema Definition (XSD) files describe the resulting functionality. Managed object file The Common Information Model (CIM) is an open standard that defines how managed elements in an IT environment are represented as a common set of objects and relationships between them.
Best practices guide The Best Practices Guide provides the work flows that group smaller WSMAN operations to achieve a particular task. To access the Best Practices Guide, from the Dell TechCenter (delltechcenter.com/LC) page, under the Web Services Integration Tools, click Best Practices Guide. Alternatively, go to http:// en.community.dell.com/techcenter/extras/m/white_papers/20066173.
• Logs • Configuration results • Hardware Inventory • Attributes • Server Configuration Profiles NOTE: To access the Lifecycle Controller XML Schema Guide, use the link http:// en.community.dell.com/techcenter/extras/m/white_papers/20270305 Authorization and licensing requirements for API access There are four levels of iDRAC licensing: NOTE: Use the link en.community.dell.com/techcenter/extras/m/white_papers/20067632.aspx to download the WSMAN License and Privilege Specification white paper.
White papers White papers help you to know in-depth information about a business-critical process that you can complete by using firmware products such as Lifecycle Controller, iDRAC and so on. You can perform these processes by using GUI features, RACADM commands, and WS-MAN commands. Lifecycle Controller and iDRAC white papers To access the white papers about Lifecycle Controller and iDRAC, go to delltechcenter.com/LC.
Integrating the Lifecycle Controller API 4 This section outlines the resources required to integrate the Lifecycle Controller API into an application: • API Clients – Lists the API clients that are available to support WinRM or WSMAN. The API clients enable a you to create an application in a variety of programming languages. • Best Practices Guide — Provides information about the common work flows, where in ready-to-use Python scripts are provided for all the common work flows.
• Other scripting examples — en.community.dell.com/techcenter/systems-management/w/wiki/ 1981.scripting-the-dell-lifecycle-controller.aspx Applications using Lifecycle Controller-Remote Services The following applications use Lifecycle Controller-Remote Services • Dell Compellent | Fluid Data Network Storage Solution — compellent.com • Dell Lifecycle Controller Integration v2.0 for System Center Configuration Manager — dell.
Social media reference 5 To obtain the most up-to-date information, go to the Dell TechCenter and search for the required information. Product Name and Topic Link on Dell TechCenter Lifecycle Controller http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/systems-management/w/wiki/ 1979.lifecycle-controller.aspx integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/systems-management/w/wiki/ 3204.dell-remote-access-controller-drac-idrac.
Terms and definitions 6 The following table lists the terms used in this document and their definitions. Term Definition LC Lifecycle Controller Enumerate Refers to WS-MAN ENUMERATE operation as described in Section 8.2 of DSP0226_V1.1 and Section 9.1 of DSP0227_V1.0 Get Refers to WS-MAN GET operation as defined in Section 7.3 of DSP00226_V1.1 and Section 7.1 of DSP0227_V1.
