I Just Got A Rack Server, Advice Wanted

[gudenau]

I just got gifted a 1U Dell PowerEdge R610 server.

Specs:

 48GB DDR3

 2 x Intel Xeon E5649

 6 drive, hotswap RAID controller

 Broken iDRAC

 

I have a few questions regarding what I should do with it.

 

I mainly want it for containers/VMs. For example one could be for a game server, one a NAS and a third for a build server. What would be a good OS to use to host this?

 

The drives are all used and one died in the first day. Combined with this uncertainty all the drives are pretty small and mismatched, preventing a large pool to be spread across all the drives. What would you recommend for replacement drives that would not cost an arm and a leg and how should I distribute the usage of those drives? RAID, BTRFS, ZFS, other?

 

Should I worry about the iDRAC at all? Is there a way to debug it/make it work without buying a new one?

 

Where should I put it, the only "non-living" space that is not a closet is often wet and I am unsure about putting it in my closet. Don't want it to overheat.

 

Edit:

Just remembered the other part.

 

The RAID controller battery is dead, should I care and is there an easy way to replace this?

[AbsoluteFool]

1 hour ago, gudenau said:

I just got gifted a 1U Dell PowerEdge R610 blade.

Specs:

 48GB DDR3

 2 x Intel Xeon E5649

 6 drive, hotswap RAID controller

 Broken iDRAC

 

I have a few questions regarding what I should do with it.

 

I mainly want it for containers/VMs. For example one could be for a game server, one a NAS and a third for a build server. What would be a good OS to use to host this?

 

The drives are all used and one died in the first day. Combined with this uncertainty all the drives are pretty small and mismatched, preventing a large pool to be spread across all the drives. What would you recommend for replacement drives that would not cost an arm and a leg and how should I distribute the usage of those drives? RAID, BTRFS, ZFS, other?

 

Should I worry about the iDRAC at all? Is there a way to debug it/make it work without buying a new one?

 

Where should I put it, the only "non-living" space that is not a closet is often wet and I am unsure about putting it in my closet. Don't want it to overheat.

 

Edit:

Just remembered the other part.

 

The RAID controller battery is dead, should I care and is there an easy way to replace this?

R610 is a rack server, not a blade server.

 

But to answer some of you're questions. It should be nice for serval things. a cupple of NAS drives should be more than enough for you. And RAID controller is better replaced with a HBA if you want something like freenas. If you however want to do RAID on a bare metal system a RAID controller is okay, but should always have battery backup.

 

About location to put it, you really just need to experiment with it.

[gudenau]

4 hours ago, AbsoluteFool said:

R610 is a rack server, not a blade server.

 

But to answer some of you're questions. It should be nice for serval things. a cupple of NAS drives should be more than enough for you. And RAID controller is better replaced with a HBA if you want something like freenas. If you however want to do RAID on a bare metal system a RAID controller is okay, but should always have battery backup.

 

About location to put it, you really just need to experiment with it.

Do you think a couple 1TB drives in RAID1 would be a good start? Maybe 4 512GB? I'm really not sure if getting 6 dives would be a good idea or getting less than 6 would be best.

[BloodKnight7]

What do you mean about a broken idrac? would you describe the problem a bit more? can you check if you have access through the serial port?

[Jarsky]

 

8 hours ago, gudenau said:

I mainly want it for containers/VMs. For example one could be for a game server, one a NAS and a third for a build server. What would be a good OS to use to host this?

 

 

You could use Proxmox, and then create any LXD Containers or any OS VM's you require for what you want to run based on the requirement for that VM. 

In Proxmox itself you can create any MDADM LVM's or ZFS storage you want at the Proxmox level as well

[gudenau]

12 hours ago, BloodKnight7 said:

What do you mean about a broken idrac? would you describe the problem a bit more? can you check if you have access through the serial port?

 

It can get an IP address but it does not serve an actual webpage, it does however redirect to HTTPS and uses an invalid/expired cert.

 

What are the settings, 9600 8N0?

 

11 hours ago, Jarsky said:

 

 

You could use Proxmox, and then create any LXD Containers or any OS VM's you require for what you want to run based on the requirement for that VM. 

In Proxmox itself you can create any MDADM LVM's or ZFS storage you want at the Proxmox level as well

That's interesting, I might have to check that out when I figure out what I want to do for drives.

[HKG]

1 hour ago, gudenau said:

 

It can get an IP address but it does not serve an actual webpage, it does however redirect to HTTPS and uses an invalid/expired cert.

 

What are the settings, 9600 8N0?

 

That's interesting, I might have to check that out when I figure out what I want to do for drives.

When that invalid cert thing pops up, click the go to website anyways button. They all do that.

[gudenau]

2 minutes ago, HKG said:

When that invalid cert thing pops up, click the go to website anyways button. They all do that.

But the document it returns is empty.

[BloodKnight7]

41 minutes ago, gudenau said:

But the document it returns is empty.

Remember I asked you if you had the ssh Access or serial access to the idrac?... If you do, then please do the following:

 

1) racadm config -g cfgRacSecurity -o cfgRacSecCsrKeySize 2048

2) racadm sslresetcfg

3) racadm racreset soft

 

Wait for the idrac to boot up and then try again.

 

 

[gudenau]

4 minutes ago, BloodKnight7 said:

Remember I asked you if you had the ssh Access or serial access to the idrac?... If you do, then please do the following:

 

1) racadm config -g cfgRacSecurity -o cfgRacSecCsrKeySize 2048

2) racadm sslresetcfg

3) racadm racreset soft

 

Wait for the idrac to boot up and then try again.

 

 

I can connect via serial, what are the settings for it? I'll do it as soon as I can.

[BloodKnight7]

Just now, gudenau said:

I can connect via serial, what are the settings for it? I'll do it as soon as I can.

Did you try ssh at all? If you have an IP in the idrac... You should have access, use Putty or any other term of your preference. For serial if I remember correctly the standard 9600 bauds should do the trick.

[gudenau]

1 hour ago, BloodKnight7 said:

Did you try ssh at all? If you have an IP in the idrac... You should have access, use Putty or any other term of your preference. For serial if I remember correctly the standard 9600 bauds should do the trick.

Interesting, it would seem as though the serial port right next to the iDRAC ethernet port and SD card slot is not for the iDRAC.

 

Guess I can try the SSH thing.

 

Edit:

Just got the web UI!

[BloodKnight7]

2 minutes ago, gudenau said:

Interesting, it would seem as though the serial port right next to the iDRAC ethernet port and SD card slot is not for the iDRAC.

  

Guess I can try the SSH thing.

 

Edit:

Just got the web UI!

Thats awesome  yeah, that serial port can be assigned for multiple uses, the assignment is done from the BIOS.

[gudenau]

1 minute ago, BloodKnight7 said:

Thats awesome  yeah, that serial port can be assigned for multiple uses, the assignment is done from the BIOS.

How can I use the remote console thing? When I click "launch" it downloads a jnlp file.

[BloodKnight7]

Ok... so your iDRAC must be version 6, that means you need to download and install java runtime in your computer so you can access the console. The newer iDRACs have an HTML5 option, im afraid yours does not.

 

[gudenau]

6 minutes ago, BloodKnight7 said:

Ok... so your iDRAC must be version 6, that means you need to download and install java runtime in your computer so you can access the console. The newer iDRACs have an HTML5 option, im afraid yours does not.

 

I've got Java installed, it's my primary programming language. What would I do, `java -jar [download]`?

 

Edit:

I suppose I need to grab a different version with javaws.

[BloodKnight7]

if you have java runtime environment you should be able to open the file with your browser (chrome, firefox, etc..) 

[gudenau]

Just now, BloodKnight7 said:

if you have java runtime environment you should be able to open the file with your browser (chrome, firefox, etc..) 

I tried to open it in FireFox and it just displayed a XML file.

[BloodKnight7]

Try installing this verison https://filehippo.com/download_jre_32/60816/ Java 8 U45

 

[gudenau]

1 minute ago, BloodKnight7 said:

Try installing this verison https://filehippo.com/download_jre_32/60816/ Java 8 U45

 

Wonder what the odds of this thing working are. I'll try the java 8 version from my package manager first and report back.

[BloodKnight7]

well, if you want a virtual kvm which will basically give you full control of the server... thats what you need to make work. Otherwise the iDRAC will allow you to do management operations like power monitoring, hardware monitoring, power control, etc...Good luck.

[gudenau]

47 minutes ago, BloodKnight7 said:

well, if you want a virtual kvm which will basically give you full control of the server... thats what you need to make work. Otherwise the iDRAC will allow you to do management operations like power monitoring, hardware monitoring, power control, etc...Good luck.

I managed to get it to launch, but it crashes because one of the jars it is trying to use is not signed. Happen to know how to disable that signature check?

 

Edit:

Turns out it was a MD5 issue. I fixed that but now it won't connect at all. Just saying that the connection failed.

 

Edit 2:

Got it working!

[BloodKnight7]

49 minutes ago, gudenau said:

I managed to get it to launch, but it crashes because one of the jars it is trying to use is not signed. Happen to know how to disable that signature check?

  

 Edit:

Turns out it was a MD5 issue. I fixed that but now it won't connect at all. Just saying that the connection failed.

 

Edit 2:

Got it working!

Awesome  depending in the quantity of Dell infrastructure you have, if you want a free centralized management console you can start looking into Dell Open Manage Essentials or Enterprise, both are "free". There is also PowerCenter plug in, OpenManage Network Manager and Support Assist.