[GLLUG] Xeon D servers (Was: Re: Power control over IP)

[Andy Smith via GLLUG]

Hi John,

On Tue, Jun 01, 2021 at 07:46:25PM +0100, John Hearns via GLLUG wrote:
> I did like the Xeon-D at that time. I wanted to position them as servers
> for bioinformatics (gene sequencing).
> I never quite achieved that and do regret it.

They've been lovely little servers for the last 5 years, been very
happy with them, and the short depth meant it was refreshing to be
able to fit one in my backpack and rock up to Telehouse on foot!
They also only draw about 48VA at idle. The chassis is only 287mm
deep:

https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/chassis/1U/510/SC510T-203B
https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X10SDV-F

But there's no upgrade path and at 1 socket / 8 cores @2GHz / 128G
RAM per 1U they are just not dense enough any more, even for someone
like me who is not trying to do anything particularly dense. :)

https://ibin.co/63ukcXdxuCBR.jpg

Maybe still useful for someone.

Cheers,
Andy

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Re: [GLLUG] Power control over IP

[John Hearns via GLLUG]

I did like the Xeon-D at that time. I wanted to position them as servers
for bioinformatics (gene sequencing).
I never quite achieved that and do regret it.

On Tue, 1 Jun 2021 at 16:50, Andy Smith via GLLUG 
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> On Tue, Jun 01, 2021 at 04:37:27PM +0100, James Courtier-Dutton via GLLUG
> wrote:
> > If you are a charity, it might be worth asking some service providers
> > if they would donate a VM for your use also.
>
> I'll probably have some Supermicro Xeon D-1540-based systems that
> are otherwise going to computer recycling soon. So if anyone wants
> them they can have them for free - it will be collect from Telehouse
> Docklands. These are 2015 vintage. As they're proper rackmount
> servers they do have a decent BMC that supports remote power
> management and console.
>
> I don't know what CPUs are in Stuart's IBM x3250s. If you can let us
> know Stuart I can tell you how a 2GHz Xeon D-1540 compares.
>
> Cheers,
> Andy
>
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Re: [GLLUG] Power control over IP

[Andy Smith via GLLUG]

Hello,

On Tue, Jun 01, 2021 at 04:37:27PM +0100, James Courtier-Dutton via GLLUG wrote:
> If you are a charity, it might be worth asking some service providers
> if they would donate a VM for your use also.

I'll probably have some Supermicro Xeon D-1540-based systems that
are otherwise going to computer recycling soon. So if anyone wants
them they can have them for free - it will be collect from Telehouse
Docklands. These are 2015 vintage. As they're proper rackmount
servers they do have a decent BMC that supports remote power
management and console.

I don't know what CPUs are in Stuart's IBM x3250s. If you can let us
know Stuart I can tell you how a 2GHz Xeon D-1540 compares.

Cheers,
Andy

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Re: [GLLUG] Power control over IP

[James Courtier-Dutton via GLLUG]

On Tue, 1 Jun 2021 at 15:55, stuart taylor via GLLUG
 wrote:
>
> hi all,
>
> We will have food for thouht at our admins meeting later this week. We have 4 
> servers in our cabinet all quite old and all donated second hand: two IBM 
> X3250s (I think) and two SUN ultras. The solutions suggested are all very 
> good but probably beyond what I would be allowed to spend. Donations are 
> down, rent has stayed the same and the only good point is that staff are 
> allowed to work at home, so renting more space won't happen.
>
> Stuart
>

Hi Stuart,

Those are very old servers indeed.
It might be worth comparing rack rental costs vs using a VM on a
service provider.
The Surrey LUG server that I help maintain is a VM. Fortunately the VM
is donated to us by the service provider, so it costs us nothing. But
saying that, the resources it takes up are minimal so the service
provider hardly notices it. I think it averages about 1 page hit per
day!
If you are a charity, it might be worth asking some service providers
if they would donate a VM for your use also.
I think the IBM X3250s have an option remote management card, that
would do the same job as iDRAC, LOM.
I don't know about the SUN ultras.

Kind Regards

James

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Re: [GLLUG] Power control over IP

[stuart taylor via GLLUG]

hi all,

 

We will have food for thouht at our admins meeting later this week. We have 4 servers in our cabinet all quite old and all donated second hand: two IBM X3250s (I think) and two SUN ultras. The solutions suggested are all very good but probably beyond what I would be allowed to spend. Donations are down, rent has stayed the same and the only good point is that staff are allowed to work at home, so renting more space won't happen.

 

Stuart
 

Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2021 at 1:15 PM
From: "John Hearns via GLLUG" 
To: "The mailing list for the Greater London Linux User Group" 
Cc: "John Hearns" 
Subject: Re: [GLLUG] Power control over IP


Regarding iDRAC there is a comprehensive overview of the various features here
Put simply, yes iDRAC supports IPMI.

I always advise getting the Enterprise license - you can get a months trial license too.
 

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-uk/oth-r6525/idrac9_4.00.00.00_ug_new/licensed-features-in-idrac9?guid=guid-e8a767a7-3648-48d7-945a-a700da1d5c96=en-us

 

If that is overwhelming you (it probably does) drop am an email offline.

 

 

 


 


On Tue, 1 Jun 2021 at 10:57, Marco van Beek via GLLUG  wrote:

As many others have already said. the ideal is if this is part of the
baseboard management tool of the servers. Although both DELL and HP call
it by their own names (and often charge extra for additional features) 
the generic term is IPMI, or Intelligent Platform Management Interface
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Platform_Management_Interface).

However, you do have to buy servers that support this, but it gives you
a lot of control, and is a lot cheaper that a compilation of a networked
KVM and a networked PDU. In most cases it is brought out as a separate
Ethernet port on the back of the server, which means you can run it on a
completely separate network should you wish for security purposes.

IPMI systems usually includes the ability to boot of remote media, like
the CD-ROM of your own computer, so you can analyse (and often fix)
corrupt boot drives without leaving home. As long as you have power to
the server (and the switch the IPMI is plugged in to, of course), you
have the ability to start fixing it.

These days when I buy a new server, we never even plug a screen or
keyboard in to it. We just do enough of the install over the KVM
interface that comes with the IPMI system, and then carry on with SSH as
an when the server is booted.

Even without a license the HP "integrated Lights Out" system will still
allow basic troubleshooting until the OS boots. I haven't played with
Dell's system, but I am sure someone on the list can confirm. We use
SuperMicro servers and if you get a motherboard with IPMI, they come
fully featured.

So I suggest looking on the back of the servers you already have and see
if there are any unexplained Ethernet ports, usually located in a
different place to the main Etherports the OS uses. As some else said,
maybe you already have some servers with the functionality you need.

Regards,

Marco

On 29/05/2021 16:19, stuart taylor via GLLUG wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> During the past 15 months I have managed to change various things involving our systems, for the better I think. We have also gained various part time volunteer admins, who are very good, mostly better than I am. One of them showed me how he could power down his servers remotely over IP, and restart them again. This looks very useful as we are spending less time at the building and mostly working from home. I have previously managed to obtain a cabinet, for our servers, change the lock for a padlock based system and restrict the key holders to a few people. This means switching servers on, or off, is better controlled, but also makes it more difficult for the admins to reboot when they are at home. Can anyone point me towards a suitable 'power supply over IP' solution? Are there any drawbacks to using these?
>
> Stuart
>


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Re: [GLLUG] Power control over IP

[John Hearns via GLLUG]

Regarding iDRAC there is a comprehensive overview of the various features
here
Put simply, yes iDRAC supports IPMI.
I always advise getting the Enterprise license - you can get a months trial
license too.

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-uk/oth-r6525/idrac9_4.00.00.00_ug_new/licensed-features-in-idrac9?guid=guid-e8a767a7-3648-48d7-945a-a700da1d5c96=en-us

If that is overwhelming you (it probably does) drop am an email offline.




On Tue, 1 Jun 2021 at 10:57, Marco van Beek via GLLUG <
gllug@mailman.lug.org.uk> wrote:

> As many others have already said. the ideal is if this is part of the
> baseboard management tool of the servers. Although both DELL and HP call
> it by their own names (and often charge extra for additional features)
> the generic term is IPMI, or Intelligent Platform Management Interface
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Platform_Management_Interface).
>
> However, you do have to buy servers that support this, but it gives you
> a lot of control, and is a lot cheaper that a compilation of a networked
> KVM and a networked PDU. In most cases it is brought out as a separate
> Ethernet port on the back of the server, which means you can run it on a
> completely separate network should you wish for security purposes.
>
> IPMI systems usually includes the ability to boot of remote media, like
> the CD-ROM of your own computer, so you can analyse (and often fix)
> corrupt boot drives without leaving home. As long as you have power to
> the server (and the switch the IPMI is plugged in to, of course), you
> have the ability to start fixing it.
>
> These days when I buy a new server, we never even plug a screen or
> keyboard in to it. We just do enough of the install over the KVM
> interface that comes with the IPMI system, and then carry on with SSH as
> an when the server is booted.
>
> Even without a license the HP "integrated Lights Out" system will still
> allow basic troubleshooting until the OS boots. I haven't played with
> Dell's system, but I am sure someone on the list can confirm. We use
> SuperMicro servers and if you get a motherboard with IPMI, they come
> fully featured.
>
> So I suggest looking on the back of the servers you already have and see
> if there are any unexplained Ethernet ports, usually located in a
> different place to the main Etherports the OS uses. As some else said,
> maybe you already have some servers with the functionality you need.
>
> Regards,
>
> Marco
>
> On 29/05/2021 16:19, stuart taylor via GLLUG wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > During the past 15 months I have managed to change various things
> involving our systems, for the better I think. We have also gained various
> part time volunteer admins, who are very good, mostly better than I am. One
> of them showed me how he could power down his servers remotely over IP, and
> restart them again. This looks very useful as we are spending less time at
> the building and mostly working from home. I have previously managed to
> obtain a cabinet, for our servers, change the lock for a padlock based
> system and restrict the key holders to a few people. This means switching
> servers on, or off, is better controlled, but also makes it more difficult
> for the admins to reboot when they are at home. Can anyone point me towards
> a suitable 'power supply over IP' solution? Are there any drawbacks to
> using these?
> >
> > Stuart
> >
>
>
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Re: [GLLUG] Power control over IP

[John Hearns via GLLUG]

Marco,  you have summarised things very well here.

As an addition, you do not have to look at the rear of the server to figure
out if the server has IPMI.
Install the ipmitool package on your server (whatever the package name is)
Start the ipmi system service
The modules loaded should be ipmi_msghandler ipmi_si ipmi_devintf

Then run  'ipmitool bmc info'   and see if there is indeed a BMC installed

As you say though - you do need either to connect a physical cable to the
dedicated BMC port or configure piggyback (bridged) mode to use the
motherboard ethernet socket.
Sorry if any of the above information is slightly off - I Am remembering
these rather than testing on a live server.









On Tue, 1 Jun 2021 at 10:57, Marco van Beek via GLLUG <
gllug@mailman.lug.org.uk> wrote:

> As many others have already said. the ideal is if this is part of the
> baseboard management tool of the servers. Although both DELL and HP call
> it by their own names (and often charge extra for additional features)
> the generic term is IPMI, or Intelligent Platform Management Interface
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Platform_Management_Interface).
>
> However, you do have to buy servers that support this, but it gives you
> a lot of control, and is a lot cheaper that a compilation of a networked
> KVM and a networked PDU. In most cases it is brought out as a separate
> Ethernet port on the back of the server, which means you can run it on a
> completely separate network should you wish for security purposes.
>
> IPMI systems usually includes the ability to boot of remote media, like
> the CD-ROM of your own computer, so you can analyse (and often fix)
> corrupt boot drives without leaving home. As long as you have power to
> the server (and the switch the IPMI is plugged in to, of course), you
> have the ability to start fixing it.
>
> These days when I buy a new server, we never even plug a screen or
> keyboard in to it. We just do enough of the install over the KVM
> interface that comes with the IPMI system, and then carry on with SSH as
> an when the server is booted.
>
> Even without a license the HP "integrated Lights Out" system will still
> allow basic troubleshooting until the OS boots. I haven't played with
> Dell's system, but I am sure someone on the list can confirm. We use
> SuperMicro servers and if you get a motherboard with IPMI, they come
> fully featured.
>
> So I suggest looking on the back of the servers you already have and see
> if there are any unexplained Ethernet ports, usually located in a
> different place to the main Etherports the OS uses. As some else said,
> maybe you already have some servers with the functionality you need.
>
> Regards,
>
> Marco
>
> On 29/05/2021 16:19, stuart taylor via GLLUG wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > During the past 15 months I have managed to change various things
> involving our systems, for the better I think. We have also gained various
> part time volunteer admins, who are very good, mostly better than I am. One
> of them showed me how he could power down his servers remotely over IP, and
> restart them again. This looks very useful as we are spending less time at
> the building and mostly working from home. I have previously managed to
> obtain a cabinet, for our servers, change the lock for a padlock based
> system and restrict the key holders to a few people. This means switching
> servers on, or off, is better controlled, but also makes it more difficult
> for the admins to reboot when they are at home. Can anyone point me towards
> a suitable 'power supply over IP' solution? Are there any drawbacks to
> using these?
> >
> > Stuart
> >
>
>
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Re: [GLLUG] Power control over IP

[Marco van Beek via GLLUG]

As many others have already said. the ideal is if this is part of the 
baseboard management tool of the servers. Although both DELL and HP call 
it by their own names (and often charge extra for additional features)  
the generic term is IPMI, or Intelligent Platform Management Interface 
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Platform_Management_Interface).


However, you do have to buy servers that support this, but it gives you 
a lot of control, and is a lot cheaper that a compilation of a networked 
KVM and a networked PDU. In most cases it is brought out as a separate 
Ethernet port on the back of the server, which means you can run it on a 
completely separate network should you wish for security purposes.


IPMI systems usually includes the ability to boot of remote media, like 
the CD-ROM of your own computer, so you can analyse (and often fix) 
corrupt boot drives without leaving home. As long as you have power to 
the server (and the switch the IPMI is plugged in to, of course), you 
have the ability to start fixing it.


These days when I buy a new server, we never even plug a screen or 
keyboard in to it. We just do enough of the install over the KVM 
interface that comes with the IPMI system, and then carry on with SSH as 
an when the server is booted.


Even without a license the HP "integrated Lights Out" system will still 
allow basic troubleshooting until the OS boots. I haven't played with 
Dell's system, but I am sure someone on the list can confirm. We use 
SuperMicro servers and if you get a motherboard with IPMI, they come 
fully featured.


So I suggest looking on the back of the servers you already have and see 
if there are any unexplained Ethernet ports, usually located in a 
different place to the main Etherports the OS uses. As some else said, 
maybe you already have some servers with the functionality you need.


Regards,

Marco

On 29/05/2021 16:19, stuart taylor via GLLUG wrote:

Hi all,

During the past 15 months I have managed to change various things involving our 
systems, for the better I think. We have also gained various part time 
volunteer admins, who are very good, mostly better than I am. One of them 
showed me how he could power down his servers remotely over IP, and restart 
them again. This looks very useful as we are spending less time at the building 
and mostly working from home. I have previously managed to obtain a cabinet, 
for our servers, change the lock for a padlock based system and restrict the 
key holders to a few people. This means switching servers on, or off, is better 
controlled, but also makes it more difficult for the admins to reboot when they 
are at home. Can anyone point me towards a suitable 'power supply over IP' 
solution? Are there any drawbacks to using these?

Stuart




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