Getting system hardware specs remotely from BSD server?

[Radium_Angel]

This question crosses all kinds of possible forums, but I figured I'd start here.

We have a Kace K1000 Systems Management Appliance here at work. It's a Dell PowerEdge r420 (production date of 2013) and I need the hardware specs.

Dell is useless and Quest (who now owns Kace) won't give me root access to run lspci.

There are tons of programs out there that will list hardware specs, remotely, of Windows PCs and servers, but drawing a blank on getting said info from a BSD server.

 

Any suggestions? Yeah I know I can power it off and physically find out, but I'm a little concerned it won't power back on, given the age of the box, and I"m not ready to virtualize the system.

[Electronics Wizardy]

What all do you want to know?

 

top will give you cpu core count + ram + swap.

 

Fdisk shows you disk setup.

 

But since you have the box, just look up the dell service code and their website shows you all the specs.

[Radium_Angel]

21 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What all do you want to know?

 

top will give you cpu core count + ram + swap.

 

Fdisk shows you disk setup.

 

But since you have the box, just look up the dell service code and their website shows you all the specs.

The Dell service code isn't listed on their website, it was sold and serviced by Kace (then part of Dell) Calling Dell tech support transfers me to Quest, who won't help (despite us owning the damn box outright AND having a valid support contract) they won't give me root access so I can run lspci.

 

My only option is to run some kind of software to pull hardware specs from the box, from either an Ubuntu box, or a Windows box (we don't have any Macs here) but since I don't have root access, this has to be done remotely.

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Radium_Angel said:

The Dell service code isn't listed on their website, it was sold and serviced by Kace (then part of Dell) Calling Dell tech support transfers me to Quest, who won't help (despite us owning the damn box outright AND having a valid support contract) they won't give me root access so I can run lspci.

 

My only option is to run some kind of software to pull hardware specs from the box, from either an Ubuntu box, or a Windows box (we don't have any Macs here) but since I don't have root access, this has to be done remotely.

 

You don't need admin to get those specs I listed above, why not try doing that? You can get things like cpu model, ram, core count easily.

 

Or just pop the side panel off. You can do this hot and just look at stickers and cards that are in it.

[Radium_Angel]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

You don't need admin to get those specs I listed above, why not try doing that? You can get things like cpu model, ram, core count easily.

The system has been locked out by Quest, so I can't log in to the console to run those commands.

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Or just pop the side panel off. You can do this hot and just look at stickers and cards that are in it.

It's a rack mount in that is a production server, so while I can do this, it's a last-ditch resort because it's a PITA to get to it.  

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Radium_Angel said:

The system has been locked out by Quest, so I can't log in to the console to run those commands.

Oh. By not having root access I though you had user level shell access.

 

Easiest way is to open it up then probalby.

 

But appliances work like this, your not buying the server, your buying a solution to do a task, so the internal hardware doesn't really matter.

[Radium_Angel]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Oh. By not having root access I though you had user level shell access.

Yeah I wish, bastards removed it in the last update. We used to have it.

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

so the internal hardware doesn't really matter.

Until you have to virtualize it and need to ensure the VM specs are better than the hardware specs, which is the whole point of this endeavour, is to gather info before VMing it. Thought I could get the info the easy way....clearly not.

 

Right, hammer time! 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Radium_Angel said:

Until you have to virtualize it and need to ensure the VM specs are better than the hardware specs, which is the whole point of this endeavour, is to gather info before VMing it. Thought I could get the info the easy way....clearly not.

This feels like a contact their support thing.

 

But since the r420 is pretty old, its 16 cores(and slow ones) max, and not too much ram. So If you have some big hosts it should be easy to virtulize.

 

But really, it only takes a few minutes to take the top off and count the ram sticks and take a picture of the ram sticks label.

[Radium_Angel]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

few minutes to take the top off

Agreed, except the damn thing is rackmounted 15 feet off the ground.

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

This feels like a contact their support thing.

I had. 2 hours later, their answer was basically "well, we don't know"

Kace is an amazing system, that no one seems to know how to make money from, hence the constant sale of the company.

First it was Kace, then Dell, then EMC, then Quest and Quest are #*%*ing useless. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Agreed, except the damn thing is rackmounted 15 feet off the ground.

I had. 2 hours later, their answer was basically "well, we don't know"

Kace is an amazing system, that no one seems to know how to make money from, hence the constant sale of the company.

First it was Kace, then Dell, then EMC, then Quest and Quest are #*%*ing useless. 

Do they allow you to virtualize the system?

 

I wouldn't try to virtualize a system without vendor approval, cause thats gonna get ugly when it has an issue, or there are gonna be things like hardware keys or licensing tied to the hardware.

[Radium_Angel]

8 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Do they allow you to virtualize the system?

 

I wouldn't try to virtualize a system without vendor approval, cause thats gonna get ugly when it has an issue, or there are gonna be things like hardware keys or licensing tied to the hardware.

They do actually. They've been pushing it for some time now, I guess they lost all the hardware info in the shuffle from Dell to them and don't want to suport actual hardware any more. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

They do actually. They've been pushing it for some time now, I guess they lost all the hardware info in the shuffle from Dell to them and don't want to suport actual hardware any more. 

Really just check the ram sticks + disks, cpus should be easy to get a faster newer system.