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Recovering and Troubleshooting the Managed System

Dell Remote Access Controller 5 Firmware Version 1.30 User's Guide

This section explains how to perform tasks related to recovering and troubleshooting a crashed remote system using the DRAC 5 Web-based interface. For information about troubleshooting your DRAC 5, see "Deploying Your Operating System Using VM-CLI".

• Troubleshooting a remote system
  
  
• Managing power on a remote system
  
  
• Using the System Event Log (SEL)
  
  
• Viewing the Last System Crash screen
  
  
• Using the RAC Log
  
  
• Using the Diagnostic Console
  
  

First Steps to Troubleshoot a Remote System

The following questions are commonly used to troubleshoot high-level problems in the managed system:

1. Is the system powered on or off?
   
   
2. If powered on, is the operating system functioning, crashed, or just frozen?
   
   
3. If powered off, did the power turn off unexpectedly?
   
   

For crashed systems, check the last crash screen (see "Viewing the Last System Crash Screen"), and use console redirection (see "Supported Screen Resolutions Refresh Rates on the Managed System") and remote power management (see "Managing Power on a Remote System") to restart the system and watch the reboot process.

Managing Power on a Remote System

The DRAC 5 enables you to remotely perform several power management actions on the managed system so you can recover after a system crash or other system event.

Use the Power Management page to do the following:

• Perform an orderly shutdown through the operating system when rebooting, and power the system on or off.
  
  
• View the system's current Power Status—either ON or OFF.
  
  

To access the Power Management page from the System tree, click System and then click the Power Management tab.

NOTE: You must have Execute Server Action Commands permission to perform power management actions.

Selecting Power Control Actions

1. Select one of the following Power Control Actions.
   
   
   • Power On System— Turns on the system power (equivalent to pressing the power button when the system power is off).
     
     
   • Power Off System— Turns off the system power (equivalent to pressing the power button when the system power is on).
     
     
   • Reset System— Resets the system (equivalent to pressing the reset button); the power is not turned off by using this function.
     
     
   • Power Cycle System— Power off, then reboot (cold boot) the system.
     
     
2. Click Apply to perform the power management action (for example, cause the system to power cycle).
   
   
3. Click the appropriate Power Management page button to continue (see Table 5-1).
   
   

Table 5-1. Power Management Page Buttons (Top Right)

Viewing System Information

The System Summary page displays information about the following system components:

• Main System Chassis
  
  
• Remote Access Controller
  
  
• Baseboard Management Controller
  
  

To access the system information, expand the System tree and click Properties.

Main System Chassis

Table 5-2 and Table 5-3 describes the main system chassis properties.

NOTE: To receive Host Name and OS Name information, you must have DRAC 5 services installed on the managed system.

Table 5-2. System Information Fields

Table 5-3. Auto Recovery Fields 

Remote Access Controller

Table 5-4 describes the Remote Access Controller properties.

Table 5-4. RAC Information Fields

Baseboard Management Controller

Table 5-5 describes the Baseboard Management Controller properties.

Table 5-5. BMC Information Fields 

Using the System Event Log (SEL)

The SEL Log page displays system-critical events that occur on the managed system.

To view the System Event Log, perform the following steps:

1. In the System tree, click System.
   
   
2. Click the Logs tab and then click System Event Log.
   
   

The System Event Log page displays the event severity and provides other information as shown in Table 5-6.

3. Click the appropriate System Event Log page button to continue (see Table 5-7).
   
   

Table 5-6. Status Indicator Icons 

Table 5-7. SEL Page Buttons 

Viewing the Last System Crash Screen

NOTICE: The last crash screen feature requires the managed system with the Auto Recovery feature configured in Server Administrator. In addition, ensure that the Automated System Recovery feature is enabled using the DRAC. Navigate to the Services page under the Configuration tab in the Remote Access section to enable this feature.

The Last Crash Screen page displays the most recent crash screen, which includes information about the events that occurred before the system crash. The last system crash information is saved in DRAC 5 memory and is remotely accessible.

To view the Last Crash Screen page, perform the following steps:

1. In the System tree, click System.
   
   
2. Click the Logs tab and then click Last Crash.
   
   

The Last Crash Screen page provides the following buttons (see Table 5-8) in the top-right corner of the screen:

Table 5-8. Last Crash Screen Page Buttons

NOTE: Due to fluctuations in the Auto Recovery timer, the Last Crash Screen may not be captured when the System Reset Timer is set to a value less than 30 seconds. Use Server Administrator or IT Assistant to set the System Reset Timer to at least 30 seconds and ensure that the Last Crash Screen functions properly. See "Configuring the Managed System to Capture the Last Crash Screen" for additional information.

Using the RAC Log

The RAC Log is a persistent log maintained in the DRAC 5 firmware. The log contains a list of user actions (such as log in, log out, and security policy changes) and alerts issued by the DRAC 5. The oldest entries are overwritten when the log becomes full.

To access the RAC Log, perform the following steps:

1. In the System tree, click Remote Access.
   
   
2. Click the Logs tab and then click RAC Log.
   
   

The RAC Log provides the information in Table 5-9.

Table 5-9. RAC Log Page Information

Using the RAC Log Page Buttons

The RAC Log page provides the following buttons (see Table 5-10).

Table 5-10. RAC Log Buttons 

Using the Diagnostic Console

The DRAC 5 provides a standard set of network diagnostic tools (see Table 5-11) that are similar to the tools included with Microsoft® Windows® or Linux-based systems. Using the DRAC 5 Web-based interface, you can access the network debugging tools.

To access the Diagnostic Console page, perform the following steps:

1. In the System tree, click Remote Access.
   
   
2. Click the Diagnostics tab.
   
   

Table 5-11 describes the options that are available on the Diagnostic Console page. Type a command and click Submit. The debugging results appear in the Diagnostic Console page.

To refresh the Diagnostic Console page, click Refresh. To execute another command, click Go Back to Diagnostics Page.

Table 5-11. Diagnostic Commands 

Troubleshooting Network Problems

The internal DRAC 5 Trace Log is used by administrators to debug DRAC 5 alerting and networking. You can access the Trace Log from the DRAC 5 Web-based interface by clicking the Diagnostics tab, typing the gettracelog command, or typing the racadm gettracelog command. See "gettracelog" for more information.

The Trace Log tracks the following information:

• DHCP — Traces packets sent to and received from a DHCP server.
  
  
• IP — Traces IP packets sent and received.
  
  

The trace log may also contain DRAC 5 firmware-specific error codes that are related to the internal DRAC 5 firmware, not the managed system's operating system.

NOTE: The DRAC 5 will not echo an ICMP (ping) with a packet size larger than 1500 bytes.

Troubleshooting Alerting Problems

Use logged SNMP trap information to troubleshoot a particular type of DRAC 5 alert. SNMP trap deliveries are logged in the Trace Log by default. However, since SNMP does not confirm delivery of traps, use a network analyzer or a tool such as Microsoft's snmputil to trace the packets on the managed system.

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