As you know, all the other plugins accept WARNING and CRITICAL-thresholds based on the calculation, if the return integer is above this threshold it reached WARNING/CRITICAL state. But check_snmp doesn’t play that way.

It expects only ranges, which are NOT gonna result in warning or critical events. Which is kinda stupid, since you gotta rethink twice about the thresholds

define service {
  use                   generic-service
  host_name             ibm-bc1-mgmt
  service_description   Chassis Cooling - Bay 1
  check_command         check_snmpv1_public!.1.3.6.1.4.1.2.3.51.2.2.3.20.0!\
                                            1900:8000!1900:0,10000:8000!\
                                            RPM!Chassis Cooling - Bay 1
  action_url            /pnp/index.php?host=$HOSTNAME$&srv=$SERVICEDESC$
  notes                 View PNP RRD grap
}

All in all, another lesson learned

First, the default user name/password combo for the Cisco MDS 9100 for the BladeCenter is USERID/PASSW0RD (just as the rest of the password combinations).

Next, we started tinkering around with the Catalyst Switch modules. A hint to myself:

Whenever setting up the switch via the WebGUI, make sure you setup both passwords. The password for the switch itself (when prompted by the WebGUI, enter “admin” as well as the password you just entered.

Now, you should be able to connect to the switch with telnet and be able to access the EXEC mode (and unlike me who struggled ~30 minutes till one of my trainees told me to enter a switch password — out of curiosity).

Now, here the list of commands I needed to setup the switch’s “basics”:

service password-encryption
username admin privilege 15 password 0

clock timezone CET 1
clock summer-time CET recurring last Sun Mar 2:00 last Sun Oct 3:00
ip domain-name home.barfoo.org
ip name-server 10.0.0.2
ip name-server 10.0.0.1
line con 0
 login local
line vty 0 4
 password

 login local
line vty 5 15
 password

 login
ntp server 160.45.10.8

DRAC/MC # racadm fwupdate -a  -d mgmt.bin

You may ask now, wtf does he use telnet for on that box ? It’s as simple as Dell isn’t providing anything else to use, the switches come w/ ssh, but not the management console. Only way to get ssh is to buy a new one, which is like 500 EUR.

Waited a few minutes impatiently for the DRAC/MC to come back up (and it finally came back up). The good thing is, the DRAC/MC is now at least a bit faster (at least I feel its a bit faster) and we’re up at mgmt-1.4.2.

Now, since we are a member of the DFN CA, we are able to generate signed certificates (at least Internet Explorer recognizes it through the DTAG Root certificate – which Mozilla products sadly don’t have by default). For that I need a 2048 bit PCKS#10 (or CSR), which I tried to squash out of the DRAC/MC. But what the hell

The DRAC/MC only gives me a 1024 bit one without the possibility to choose what kind of CSR I want to generate …

My boss ordered me to attend a workshop covering the implementation of Shibboleth (for those of you, who can’t associate anything with that term – it’s an implementation for single sign-on, also covering distributed authorization and authentication) somewhere in Berlin Spandau (Evangelisches Johannesstift Berlin).

Yesterday was quite amazing workwise, we lifted the 75kg Blade Chassis into the rack (*yuck* there was a time I was completely against Dell stuff, but recently that has changed), plugged all four C22 plugs into the rack’s PDU’s and into the chassis, patched the management interface (which is *waaay* to slow for a dedicated management daughter board) and for the first time started the chassis. *ugh* That scared me .. that wasn’t noise like a xSeries or any other rack-based server we have around, more like a starting airplane. You can literally stand in behind of the chassis, and get your hairs dried (if you need to). So I looked at the blades together with my co-worker and we figured, that they don’t have any coolers anymore, they are just using the cooling the chassis provides.

Another surprise awaited us, when we thought, we could use the integrated switch to provide network for both integrated network cards (Broadcome NetExtreme II). *sigh* You need two seperate switches to serve two network cards, even if you only have two blades in the chassis (which provides space for 10 blades). *sigh* That really sucks, but its the same with the FC stuff …

So, we are waiting yet again for Dell to make us an offer, and on top of that, the sales representative doesn’t have the slightest idea if the FC passthrough module includes SFP’s or not … *yuck*

I must say, I’m impressed by the Dell hardware, but I’m really disappointed by their sales representative.