Dell Openmanage in XenServer 7

Mark Hamilton · June 10, 2016

Just in case anyone wanted to set up Dell Openmanage on XenServer 7 I thought I would post my steps.

First you need to add the dell repo. Dell has an easy way to drop that in for Redhat that works well for Centos which Xen is built on.

wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/DSU_16.05.00/bootstrap.cgi | bash

You should see something like this:

Downloading GPG key: http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/DSU_16.05.00/public.key

Importing key into RPM.

Write repository configuration

Done!

Next we have to fix the Centos repo that is in XenServer. Use your favorite editor, like vi or nano, and edit the file /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo. You will need Comment out (add a # in front of) the mirrorlist line in the [base] section. Then add the following line after the line you just commented:

baseurl=http://mirrors.kernel.org/centos/7.2.1511/os/x86_64/

Edited 4/3/2017:

To deal with the base url changing every time Centos updates I changed my baseurl to this in my latest XenServer 7.1 install:

baseurl=http://mirrors.kernel.org/centos/7/os/x86_64/

You have to do this or the mirrorlist will not be able to find the appropriate mirror since this is really a XenServer and not a Centos 7 server. Without this you will see an error when you try to use the repo. I use kernel.org. You can use whichever Centos mirror you prefer. Also, the latest 7.2.1511 release worked fine for me.

Next you use this command to get Openmanage installed enabling the repo you just modified to get the dependencies.

yum --enablerepo=base install srvadmin-all

You will have to say yes install the list and yes to allow the import of the Centos key.

Next use an editor again to edit /etc/sysconfig/iptables.

Add the following line after the line that has ESTABLISHED,RELATED in it:

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 1311 -j ACCEPT

This will allow you through the firewall to the Openmanage port. Use the following command to activate what you just edited:

systemctl restart iptables

Last you need to start the Openmange services.

/opt/dell/srvadmin/sbin/srvadmin-services.sh start

You are now done. Just browse to https://ip.of.server:1311

Joseph Gullo · February 16, 2018

Just for fun, here's a copy/paste command set which will set the whole thing up in one go. The only issue is that the dell repo 404's a lot...if it fails, wait a while and re-run the whole command set. You know the wget command works when

wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/dsu/bootstrap.cgi | bash
sed -i -r '15s|^mirrorlist=|#mirrorlist=|' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo
sed -i -r '16s|^.*$|baseurl=http://mirrors.kernel.org/centos/7/os/x86_64/|' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo
sed -i '17s|0|1|' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo
yum -y --enablerepo=base install srvadmin-all
sed -i 's|ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT$|ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT\n-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 1311 -j ACCEPT|g' /etc/sysconfig/iptables
systemctl restart iptables
/opt/dell/srvadmin/sbin/srvadmin-services.sh start

Dominik Korittki · June 15, 2016

Thank you for the information!

I'm rather unsure about the yum repo part. Without modifying the baseurl of the CentOS base repositories, really there seems to be no way to install any further software. I am a bit concerned regarding the stability of Xenserver 7 when changing this. I would like to install more software (like openmanage) and even use the epel repository, but I am a bit concerned regarding the stability of Xenserver 7. Is it safe to do?

Mark Hamilton · June 15, 2016

I believe that if you modify, or "hack", the underlying operating system in any way you are technically voiding any warranty. So, is it safe? Probably not. That being said. What I did above was tell yum where to find the files for that repo that was already there. I also did not enable the repo permanently but used the --enablerepo parameter so it would only be used for this one command. Openmanage just needed a few packages from the Centos base repo to install so I made them available.

I have not added any other repositories to XenServer so I don't know what affect it will have on the server. If you did install the repo I am not sure it would even work without doing some similar modification to the epel baseurl or mirrorlist. I also don't know if, during the install of some other software, the repo would pull in packages that replace important files used by XenServer. In short, if you are not very careful about the packages you allow to install you may end up with a broken system.

Others may have more experience with other repos on XenServer.

Mark

C F · June 15, 2016

We've historically installed check_mk, salt-minion, Dell OMSA, and a LLDP agent on xenservers from 5.0 through 6.5 without significant issues

These main problems may come about :

1) doing a gratuitous "yum upgrade -y" and getting too many packages out of synch with the xenserver sepecific ones.

2) XS65 specific because centos5 is rather old - trying to find "bridging" packages that are compiled for centos5 but new enough to provide the support required. salt-minion and python under xenserver 6.5 are first to mind.

3) kludge software raid underneath xenserver. The installer won't see this and will merrily wipe out your entire install.

Penny Wu · June 24, 2016

Hi Mark Hamilton,

Thanks for your sharing.

I got a problem,when I'm doing the following steps.

yum --enablerepo=base install srvadmin-all

The error message was:

--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Error: Package: python-smbios-2.2.27-4.4.1.el7.x86_64 (@dell-omsa-indep)

Requires: libsmbios = 2.2.27-4.4.1.el7

Removing: libsmbios-2.2.27-4.4.1.el7.x86_64 (@dell-omsa-indep)

libsmbios = 2.2.27-4.4.1.el7

Updated By: libsmbios-2.2.27-1908.9058.el7.x86_64 (dell-system-update_dependent)

libsmbios = 2.2.27-1908.9058.el7

You could try using --skip-broken to work around the problem

You could try running: rpm -Va --nofiles --nodigest

I hope you will be able to provide the information.

Mark Hamilton · June 24, 2016

I am not sure. Just to test I grabbed an R710 that was not in use and dropped a clean install of Xen 7 on it. The procedure above worked with no issues. I literally copied and pasted from the post above.

Maybe you didn't get the baseurl in and the mirrorlist commented out in the /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo?

Mark

Penny Wu · June 27, 2016

Hi Mark,

I'm sure I did the same way ( /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo.)

Finally,I reinstalled my R170 and it works now. :)

Thank you soooo much.

Craig Falconer · September 26, 2016

Is there any trick to supporting older hardware? I have c5220 blades which are getting on. Under XS6.5 we used OMSA 7.3.2 and it worked fine. How can I support OpenManage on dell c5220 and c6220 blades under xenserver 7 ?

Mark Hamilton · September 26, 2016

Don't really know of any tricks. I don't know what versions of openmanage support the c5220 or c6220. You can try an older repo from dell.

Go here: http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/

From there you can choose an older repo for the first step. However, I don't know if some of the older repos support RH/Centos 7. I could be wrong but I think 7.4 was the first version to start supporting Redhat 7.

Mark

Doug Hair · March 23, 2017

If you are still running 7.0 then the baseurl has changed.

baseurl=http://archive.kernel.org/centos/7.2.1511/os/x86_64/

Anyone know what version of CentOS is used for XenServer 7.1?

-Louis

Mark Hamilton · April 3, 2017

To deal with the base url changing every time Centos updates I changed my baseurl to this in my latest XenServer 7.1 install:

baseurl=http://mirrors.kernel.org/centos/7/os/x86_64/

Mark

Poldek W. · May 29, 2017

I instaled OMSA on 2 DELL R730 servers but it doesn't work propertly

Do you have any idea?

Mark Hamilton · May 29, 2017

My best guess would be that the repository I used for the R710 doesn't have support for the storage controller that you have in the R730. Maybe you should use a newer repository.

Look here: http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/

It looks like the latest version supports the R730.

Niklas Åhden · May 30, 2017

We have modified the repos for quite a few versions of XenServer to be able to install nrpe and such tools.

It has never caused us any trouble and I am having a hard time seeing how it would as long as you act carefully.

With that said, you really should test all your installations on a test-server before doing it in production.
I've seen cases where you install something that creates a conflict and that gets things out of sync which will affect stability.

//Niklas

C F · November 23, 2017

On 26/09/2016 at 5:11 PM, Craig Falconer said:

Is there any trick to supporting older hardware? I have c5220 blades which are getting on. Under XS6.5 we used OMSA 7.3.2 and it worked fine. How can I support OpenManage on dell c5220 and c6220 blades under xenserver 7 ?

I'm struggling with the c5220 blades too - no good solution there. Anyone with better suggestions feel free to comment. Replacing would be awesome, but its not going to happen anytime soon :-\

On the plus side, c6220 blades work for me except for storage monitoring.

[root@c6220-2-2 ~]# omreport storage controllers
Error! Invalid command: controllers

My history shows I used this on the c6220

wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/DSU_17.08.00/bootstrap.cgi | bash
yum --enablerepo=base install srvadmin-all dell-system-update -y
/opt/dell/srvadmin/sbin/srvadmin-services.sh restart      

/opt/monitoring/nagios/check_openmanage3  --no-storage

The --no-storage is disappointing, you can't monitor physical or vdisks.

Tobias Kreidl · November 23, 2017

Hmmm... I gave up on OpenManage some time ago. There are some RAID monitoring utilities that can be made to work, depending on the server brand, like for Dell, there's the MegaRAID utility.

-=Tobias

Niklas Åhden · November 23, 2017

Yeah, we monitor our arrays with the check_megaraid plugin to Nagios/Icinga which monitors our Dell Perc H730p.

//Niklas

Raouf Aoues · May 18, 2018

HI Guys,

i didnt manage to install OMSA i get this error message :

--> Processing Dependency: libsmbios.so.2()(64bit) for package: srvadmin-storage-9.1.0-2757.12163.el7.x86_64
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Error: Package: srvadmin-storage-9.1.0-2757.12163.el7.x86_64 (dell-system-update_dependent)
Requires: libsmbios.so.2()(64bit)
Available: libsmbios-2.3.1-2757.12163.el7.x86_64 (dell-system-update_dependent)
libsmbios.so.2()(64bit)
Installed: libsmbios-2.3.3-6.el7.x86_64 (@base)
Not found
You could try using --skip-broken to work around the problem
You could try running: rpm -Va --nofiles --nodigest

what i dont understand is that i have the package :

[root@srp-xsi-62 etc]# rpm -qa | grep libsmbios*
libsmbios-2.3.3-6.el7.x86_64

any ideas ?

cheers,

Craig Falconer · May 20, 2018

On 5/18/2018 at 11:39 PM, Raouf Aoues said:

i didnt manage to install OMSA i get this error message :

--> Processing Dependency: libsmbios.so.2()(64bit) for package: srvadmin-storage-9.1.0-2757.12163.el7.x86_64
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Error: Package: srvadmin-storage-9.1.0-2757.12163.el7.x86_64 (dell-system-update_dependent)
Requires: libsmbios.so.2()(64bit)
Available: libsmbios-2.3.1-2757.12163.el7.x86_64 (dell-system-update_dependent)
libsmbios.so.2()(64bit)
Installed: libsmbios-2.3.3-6.el7.x86_64 (@base)
Not found
You could try using --skip-broken to work around the problem
You could try running: rpm -Va --nofiles --nodigest

what i dont understand is that i have the package :

[root@srp-xsi-62 etc]# rpm -qa | grep libsmbios*
libsmbios-2.3.3-6.el7.x86_64

Yeah CentOS is 7.5 now, and this particular file is diverging from what OMSA wants to use. Its not specific to Xenserver.

We're seeing the same problem on vanilla centos hosts upgrading from centos7.4 to 7.5

The answer is to wait for Dell to come out with a new version of OMSA. In the meantime you can use --skip-broken to avoid upgrading libsmbios and anything depending on it, but that won't help you with a fresh install.

This is not unique to xenserver.

Mark Hamilton · May 21, 2018

Set your baseurl to:

baseurl=http://mirrors.kernel.org/centos/7.4.1708/os/x86_64/

I just set up a new server and it worked fine by specifying the version of Centos in the baseurl.

Mark

Craig Falconer · May 21, 2018

6 hours ago, Mark Hamilton said:

Set your baseurl to:

baseurl=http://mirrors.kernel.org/centos/7.4.1708/os/x86_64/

I just set up a new server and it worked fine by specifying the version of Centos in the baseurl.

Good work! I see Dell has released a new Openmanage today, dated May.

http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/DSU_18.05.00/

Raouf Aoues · May 22, 2018

15 hours ago, Mark Hamilton said:

Set your baseurl to:

baseurl=http://mirrors.kernel.org/centos/7.4.1708/os/x86_64/

I just set up a new server and it worked fine by specifying the version of Centos in the baseurl.

Mark

Hi mark thks for the answer.

could you please send me a screen shot of your "CentOS-Base.repo" plz ?

cheers,

Raouf Aoues · May 22, 2018

all good with a new server.

i'll have to understand why it doesn't work with the one i have all tried.

thks mark

matt yoscovits · March 28, 2022

I was able to get this running on Xenserver 7.6 by changing the wget url to wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/DSU_19.01.00/bootstrap.cgi | bash

I was running into dependency errors also I modified the baseurl to baseurl=http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/centos/7/os/x86_64/

I hope this helps somebody else.

Thank you,

Matt

Dell Openmanage in XenServer 7

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