The identity you are seeing on the login page is the hostname of the iDRAC as set in the network settings. Changing the service tag on the motherboard does not update that setting. You can change that easily enough tough. However I would have very early on just download the Linux iDRAC firmware update and installed it to fix the SSL issues rather than messing about with old browser versions.
Thanks for pointing that out. yes, I found where that name is set, and there's an "auto" option which didn't pickup on the service tag change until after a couple of idrac config resets. It eventually updated itself.
These kinds of shenanigans are so frustrating in production environments.. I happen to have a pretty F'd up setup at work where I have to run R900/410/720/730/740 mixed set of crap with whatever options, disks and everything else where one host is different from the next. Some have enterprise iDRAC and some do not and oh boy I can't wait to get rid of them in a couple of years.
sadly, we are living in a world where we all pay for the same hardware, but have to pay more to enable "additional" features. that said, Dell is probably one of the least offenders in this area, besides Supermicro, which has considerably less market share. I think HPE, Oracle, and Cisco servers are probably worse. And Lenovo has a tiny market share in the US. So, if you want to get rid of those Dells, what do you think is a better replacement?
Great video dude! I'm wondered about moving a license from one r730xd to another one of mine. If one r730xd dies partially, it might just be time to move it out. One suggestion: A GREAT video I would like, and perhaps others would, is one which you detail all of the software needed to install on a Centos (say, or Ubuntu) bootable USB to flash, update firmware, change 520b -> 512b drives/SSDs, flip Mellanox to IP mode, etc. I've been working on this myself but you've much more experience. I'm trying to do a live, bootable image, which can work minus the Internet being up/connected. We'll see.
Thanks! :-) yes, I think the same process can be done for R730XD to transfer license of idrac. one thing that I learned here is that you should make a backup copy of the license. If my board was completely dead, I would not have been able to pull the license out of the idrac. So, I got lucky in a way that the old motherboard was not completely dead yet. Thanks for the video suggestion! I'll keep that in mind, but right now I have a huge backlog of videos ideas about 12 pages long... :-)
yes, I found where that name is set, and there's an "auto" option which didn't pickup on the service tag change until after a couple of idrac config resets. It eventually updated itself.
I'm a bit surprised that you're still willing to run those old servers in your lab. If you're not running them 24/7, I guess it's fine. For many years, I used 10+ years old equipment for my lab. Last year I decided it's time for a change and started using more performant and more power-efficient equipment. Using modern MB with Ryzen 5950x, NVMe storage. Additional advantage of such equipment is that it runs cooler, can be cooled with Noctua silent fans, and it performs several times faster in certain scenarios. What's not to like ;)
Usually new stuff makes more sense. But if the old stuff works just fine, is there and is free well... that's a point too. Especially if you have cheap electricity and low requirements.
@@benbaselet2026 There's a reason why those older servers sell so cheap. #1 2-3 times slower (CPU) than modern CPUs. #2 Being so inefficient (compared to modern equipment), they consume 2-3 times the energy.
I have a cluster of R710's in production at work. They are repurposed head nodes of an old HPC cluster doing duty as clustered SMB file servers for the current cluster. One could keel over and die tomorrow and meh its clustered samba on GPFS, it's unlikely any would even notice. Besides they are redundant everything and I have spares on the shelf. They are also wildly over powered for what they are doing. Replacing the with new kit would be about $20k for zero performance gain.
@@gwojcieszczuk Who cares if some new thing is 5 times faster than the old thing if it's main job is just to sit there doing light work. Old servers can hit 100-200 watts of idle power consumption and if a new one hits 80-120 watts well it's not worth putting thousands on the table for something you are not using.
Alternatively, you could buy a license from one of many ebay vendors. I'm not sure why the iDRAC7 licenses are so much more at $80 than the 8 & 9 licenses for around $25 or so, but either way, that's far cheaper than what Dell charged for them when new.
I'm not sure why idrac7 licenses are so expensive right now. It used to be lower from eBay vendors, but then it went up, and the newer idrac8/9 licenses went down. either way, $80 would have almost doubled the cost of the motherboard.
Cool trick, thanks. Dell does still support "iso firmware update" creation tool. It is clunky and can not update power supply firmware, nor the bios/uefi, if upgrade path requires going trough multiple versions step by step. I have updated several servers with it. It will also update idrac, which will offer better encryption, acceptable for modern browsers. Also: do You still on CentOS 7 on those seevers? I recently installed 8 with additional megaraid iso from elrepo. They are doing an autstanding job with those drivers.
I'm still mostly on CentOS 7, and I have maybe 1 or 2 on CentOS 8. I was considering going to Rocky or Alma in the next year or so, but I haven't decided and with everything IBM/RHEL is doing, I'm not sure where things will end up.
Soooo... basicly, if I have like 10 servers, I can just do the same and use the same licence for all the servers? If not, it's actually prette cheap to get a licence from ebay... think it cost around 20-25 euros
LOL.. yeah, I think that's possible. with regards to idrac7 enterprise license on ebay... I haven't seen anything less than $60??? the idrac8/9 licenses seem much cheaper, but I haven't seen less. Where have you found them for $20-25?
Thanks for this video - going to have to go through these steps on my R730 when its replacement motherboard arrives. I'm a bit of a Linux noob, so could you please explain how I get the kernel patch in place? Or point me to somewhere that has it? Thanks!
Me too... yesterday arrived a dell r520 for my new home nas, i changed cpus as they were overkill from 2 2470 to 1 2430l v2, added 32 gb of exact same type of ram, put in hard drives, at first it booted, i tried windows server 2019 and it worked fine, than i shut down went to sleep and the next morning, i turned it on to format the disks, make raid and install truenas core, it gets stuck at idrac initializing, sometimes even at memory init. I will probably have to discuss with the vendor to get a replacement motherboard
oh man, those inconsistent and intermittent issues are the worse! so difficult to diagnose if it is not reproducible every time... I don't envy your problem my friend! hope you get it sorted out!
I haven't used those M.2 SATA controllers enough to have any opinion. I think if they are designed correctly, with enough PCIe bandwidth, and a good controller chip, like ASMedia, it will probably be fine. But I have no direct experience to be able to compare.
i think that's pretty much what I did in the 2nd half of this video... I added the enterprise license to the new motherboard that only had the idrac express.
LOL... isn't it the norm these days that most vendors don't really test their used computer gear? I rarely find any vendor of used computer equipment that really tests their stuff, especially the recycling facilities. You're lucky if they at least power it on. Everybody is going for volume over quality. That's why I don't sell larger volume of stuff at my eBay store, because I actually spend the time to do in-depth testing of the stuff I sell.
Can't thank you enough for this video. It has saved me a mount load of headaches! and hair ripping out moments!
Glad it helped!
The identity you are seeing on the login page is the hostname of the iDRAC as set in the network settings. Changing the service tag on the motherboard does not update that setting. You can change that easily enough tough. However I would have very early on just download the Linux iDRAC firmware update and installed it to fix the SSL issues rather than messing about with old browser versions.
Agreed, also saw that in the BIOS iDRAC settings
Thanks for pointing that out. yes, I found where that name is set, and there's an "auto" option which didn't pickup on the service tag change until after a couple of idrac config resets. It eventually updated itself.
These kinds of shenanigans are so frustrating in production environments.. I happen to have a pretty F'd up setup at work where I have to run R900/410/720/730/740 mixed set of crap with whatever options, disks and everything else where one host is different from the next. Some have enterprise iDRAC and some do not and oh boy I can't wait to get rid of them in a couple of years.
sadly, we are living in a world where we all pay for the same hardware, but have to pay more to enable "additional" features. that said, Dell is probably one of the least offenders in this area, besides Supermicro, which has considerably less market share. I think HPE, Oracle, and Cisco servers are probably worse. And Lenovo has a tiny market share in the US. So, if you want to get rid of those Dells, what do you think is a better replacement?
Great video dude! I'm wondered about moving a license from one r730xd to another one of mine. If one r730xd dies partially, it might just be time to move it out.
One suggestion: A GREAT video I would like, and perhaps others would, is one which you detail all of the software needed to install on a Centos (say, or Ubuntu) bootable USB to flash, update firmware, change 520b -> 512b drives/SSDs, flip Mellanox to IP mode, etc. I've been working on this myself but you've much more experience. I'm trying to do a live, bootable image, which can work minus the Internet being up/connected. We'll see.
Thanks! :-) yes, I think the same process can be done for R730XD to transfer license of idrac. one thing that I learned here is that you should make a backup copy of the license. If my board was completely dead, I would not have been able to pull the license out of the idrac. So, I got lucky in a way that the old motherboard was not completely dead yet.
Thanks for the video suggestion! I'll keep that in mind, but right now I have a huge backlog of videos ideas about 12 pages long... :-)
16:07 The name in the network settings is still the old name, which is probably displaying on the iDRAC login screen.
yes, I found where that name is set, and there's an "auto" option which didn't pickup on the service tag change until after a couple of idrac config resets. It eventually updated itself.
Good video sir,
Thank you for watching! :-)
I'm a bit surprised that you're still willing to run those old servers in your lab. If you're not running them 24/7, I guess it's fine. For many years, I used 10+ years old equipment for my lab. Last year I decided it's time for a change and started using more performant and more power-efficient equipment. Using modern MB with Ryzen 5950x, NVMe storage. Additional advantage of such equipment is that it runs cooler, can be cooled with Noctua silent fans, and it performs several times faster in certain scenarios. What's not to like ;)
Usually new stuff makes more sense. But if the old stuff works just fine, is there and is free well... that's a point too. Especially if you have cheap electricity and low requirements.
@@benbaselet2026 There's a reason why those older servers sell so cheap. #1 2-3 times slower (CPU) than modern CPUs. #2 Being so inefficient (compared to modern equipment), they consume 2-3 times the energy.
I have a cluster of R710's in production at work. They are repurposed head nodes of an old HPC cluster doing duty as clustered SMB file servers for the current cluster. One could keel over and die tomorrow and meh its clustered samba on GPFS, it's unlikely any would even notice. Besides they are redundant everything and I have spares on the shelf. They are also wildly over powered for what they are doing. Replacing the with new kit would be about $20k for zero performance gain.
@@jonathanbuzzard1376 Using such equipment at work makes sense. But using it in a home lab...???
@@gwojcieszczuk Who cares if some new thing is 5 times faster than the old thing if it's main job is just to sit there doing light work. Old servers can hit 100-200 watts of idle power consumption and if a new one hits 80-120 watts well it's not worth putting thousands on the table for something you are not using.
Thanks!
Thank you for your support 🙏
Alternatively, you could buy a license from one of many ebay vendors. I'm not sure why the iDRAC7 licenses are so much more at $80 than the 8 & 9 licenses for around $25 or so, but either way, that's far cheaper than what Dell charged for them when new.
I'm not sure why idrac7 licenses are so expensive right now. It used to be lower from eBay vendors, but then it went up, and the newer idrac8/9 licenses went down. either way, $80 would have almost doubled the cost of the motherboard.
Cool trick, thanks. Dell does still support "iso firmware update" creation tool. It is clunky and can not update power supply firmware, nor the bios/uefi, if upgrade path requires going trough multiple versions step by step. I have updated several servers with it. It will also update idrac, which will offer better encryption, acceptable for modern browsers.
Also: do You still on CentOS 7 on those seevers? I recently installed 8 with additional megaraid iso from elrepo. They are doing an autstanding job with those drivers.
I'm still mostly on CentOS 7, and I have maybe 1 or 2 on CentOS 8. I was considering going to Rocky or Alma in the next year or so, but I haven't decided and with everything IBM/RHEL is doing, I'm not sure where things will end up.
Soooo... basicly, if I have like 10 servers, I can just do the same and use the same licence for all the servers?
If not, it's actually prette cheap to get a licence from ebay... think it cost around 20-25 euros
LOL.. yeah, I think that's possible. with regards to idrac7 enterprise license on ebay... I haven't seen anything less than $60??? the idrac8/9 licenses seem much cheaper, but I haven't seen less. Where have you found them for $20-25?
Are you doing a video on upgrading the firmware on that new motherboard and bios
I've done that in the past here: ua-cam.com/video/ISA7j2BKgjI/v-deo.html
Is there any difference between now and 3 years ago lol
Thanks for this video - going to have to go through these steps on my R730 when its replacement motherboard arrives. I'm a bit of a Linux noob, so could you please explain how I get the kernel patch in place? Or point me to somewhere that has it? Thanks!
what kernel patch are you referring to?
The Dell Systems Management base driver you said needs to be in the kernel.
Is it just a case of installing the right package? If so, I can definitely manage that.
Me too... yesterday arrived a dell r520 for my new home nas, i changed cpus as they were overkill from 2 2470 to 1 2430l v2, added 32 gb of exact same type of ram, put in hard drives, at first it booted, i tried windows server 2019 and it worked fine, than i shut down went to sleep and the next morning, i turned it on to format the disks, make raid and install truenas core, it gets stuck at idrac initializing, sometimes even at memory init. I will probably have to discuss with the vendor to get a replacement motherboard
Or even a replacement box
oh man, those inconsistent and intermittent issues are the worse! so difficult to diagnose if it is not reproducible every time... I don't envy your problem my friend! hope you get it sorted out!
What is your opinion on M.2 to sata adaptors vs HBA card? Is there any compromise? Please give unbiased opinion as we know you sell cards😜
I haven't used those M.2 SATA controllers enough to have any opinion. I think if they are designed correctly, with enough PCIe bandwidth, and a good controller chip, like ASMedia, it will probably be fine. But I have no direct experience to be able to compare.
hi, any video upgrading idrac basic to enterprise?
i think that's pretty much what I did in the 2nd half of this video... I added the enterprise license to the new motherboard that only had the idrac express.
Hey @ArtOfServer, question. Can you use 2 HBAs and SAS expanders to double the total amount of bandwidth or performance in a server system?
You need a dual port SAS backplane and SAS drives that have dual ports to do that.
You should charge the vendor for testing their motherboard for them.
LOL... isn't it the norm these days that most vendors don't really test their used computer gear? I rarely find any vendor of used computer equipment that really tests their stuff, especially the recycling facilities. You're lucky if they at least power it on. Everybody is going for volume over quality. That's why I don't sell larger volume of stuff at my eBay store, because I actually spend the time to do in-depth testing of the stuff I sell.
R720 odissey
indeed. :-)