I installed the Windows Server Backup feature on the new server and did a backup to the Synology 1812+.
I backed up the DHCP configuration on the main DHCP server and restored it to the DHCP server on the new server, then stopped the service so there would be only one DHCP server running. There are ways to run two DHCP servers at the same time and get redundancy. I favor the split scope method for medium-sized installations. I don’t need that level of redundancy; it will be sufficient if I have a DHCP server with the right configuration ready to go in case the main DHCP server goes down.
I plugged the iDRAC remote management port into the Ethernet, and went to the DHCP server to see what IP address had been assigned. Armed with that information, I pointed a browser at the remote management port and tried to log in with userid “root” and password “calvin”. No go. Funny, that always used to work. Oh, I bet I know what happened. I configured the DRAC controller for the old server to use DHCP. I bet I’m trying to talk to it, not the new iDRAC controller. Yep, that’s it. The upper left corner of the browser window says DRAC5, net the DRAC7 I’d see if I had logged into the right remote management port.
Back to the DHCP leases. Hmm… No name that starts with rac. No name that starts with drac. Where is that sucker? Let’s just go with the most recent lease. Nope. I can’t find it anywhere. Am I going to have to – oh, the shame of it – read the manual? I download the pdf from Dell’s web site. Can’t find anything about initial network settings.
I guess I’m on my own. I shut down the system, start it again, and enter the setup key as the POST runs. In the BIOS, I see a setting for the iDRAC. I go in, and find that the remote management port has been assigned a static IP address. I change the IP address to one that makes sense on my network, enter the other network information, and reboot.
Pointing the browser to the iDRAC IP address, I see this:
I enter “root” and “calvin”, and I’m in. I add an administrative user. I log out. I log in with the new userid. Now I know it works. I disable root. I check the system status. The current power level is 56 watts, which I think is pretty respectable for such a big server. The SSDs help – no spinning disks. I look around some more. The right pane freezes. I’m using Chrome, which is an unsupported browser. I switch to Firefox. Better.
There’s a lot of neat stuff here. You can set what information appears on the display on the front of the computer. The default is the service tag, but there are about ten more choices, including operating temperature, host name and a user-defined string, all of which could be useful. The power supply status information contains the firmware version; thirty years ago if you’d told me that power supplies would have integral computers, I would have laughed.
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