R420 iDRAC7 not working when server off

Belgarath Sorceror

11/8/23, 4:15 PM

I have Dell R420 with iDRAC enterprise in my home lab however I don't have a dedicated management interface, it is using one of the onboard NICs for that.

However when I shutdown the system both onboard NICs go dark (i.e the LAN leds don't work anymore) and I can't connect to iDRAC or use WAL. The iDrac IP is not responsive at that stage and etherping can't reach that system.

As I keep those in a garage and not on all the time, any help to resolve that would be greatly appreciated. At the moment I reverted back to using smart-plug to control on/off but this is far from optimal.

Thanks in advance for any pointers

176

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Server

Grant Curell

11/14/23, 5:36 PM

(Mandatory legal note - I work for Dell)

Haven't tested that personally but that's the behavior I would expect. The iDRAC is a separate computer entirely. Not sure about the R420 as that's quite old but newer iDRACs have their own ARM proc and memory. As long as the server is plugged in, the expansion card itself will remain on along with the card's corresponding interfaces.

That is not true of the other interfaces which are physically attached to the motherboard and are not independently powered. When you kill the server, those are going to die along with it.

+ 4

TomTom

11/14/23, 5:42 PM

This is not true for BMC's that just piggiback on the same port, at least with other systems (Supermirco). I havve a number of recent ones where the mnagement port is shared with Eth1 - but still working with the computer off. Just the same physical port.

Tomek

11/14/23, 5:53 PM

NIC should veto complete power off and the BMC should remain available. Saying that - it may depend on the NIC (onboard, mezzanine card, PCI-e slot with PCI-e having least chance of working correctly), NIC FW and configuration, NIC brand (go for Dell) and possibly - PCI-e slot configuration. Try to keep WoL on on the shared NIC, enable wake by PCI-e in BIOS. Some multiport NICs may share correctly only on the first NIC port.

Grant Curell

11/15/23, 12:09 AM

@TomTom - the iDRAC isn't like the BMC that the SuperMicro has - that I am familiar with. It is a completely separate PCIe card (along with several other electrical connections for various other protocols). You can use the lifecycle controller to force the iDRAC to use another port other then its own but it doesn't natively do that (and I've never actually seen someone use that feature ).

Grant Curell

11/15/23, 12:17 AM

@Tomek - maybe? That sounds reasonable. I'll have to test it if I get some free time. Correct me if I'm wrong as this isn't something I'm as familiar with but WOL is managed by the BIOS plus it has to be supported as you mentioned by the NIC. I'm looking at an iDRAC right now (though it's a 15G R7525) and I'm not seeing anything in the BIOS that stands out to me as being related to setting this. I might be missing it though? I'm open to suggestion

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