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How to monitor Dell servers

Introduction Copied

Dell server hardware can be remotely monitored via SNMP. The plugin used here comes with the OP5 Monitor plugin package as default. To monitor your Dell server, you need to have the following installed:

Dell OpenManage Server Administrator" (Managed Node), a.k.a ‘OMSA’ >= 5.1.0

Verify OMSA Copied

First verify the Dell server you are trying to monitor has ‘OMSA’ installed and running. (This may require installation and network security configuration of SNMP in Windows.) A good test is to browse to https://dell-server:1311/

If you don’t have OMSA installed, do the following:

Linux Copied

  1. Set up the Dell OpenManage Repository

    # wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/latest/bootstrap.cgi | bash

  2. Install OMSA

    # yum install srvadmin-all

  3. Start OMSA Services

    # service snmpd restart
# /opt/dell/srvadmin/sbin/srvadmin-services.sh restart

Corner Cases Copied

On rare occasions, the SNMP daemon won’t start because of the package net-snmp missing. This was encountered on a RHEL 6.4 installation.

If so, just run the following command:

# yum install net-snmp

The package tog-pegasus may conflict with the packages listed above and can safely be removed if not used with the following command:

# yum remove tog-pegasus

Windows Copied

  1. Go to DELL support website -> click Support -> “Drivers & Downloads” -> type your server model in the search box (in my case, I typed “PowerEdge 2850”) -> choose the operating system -> select Category - ‘Systems Management’ -> Locate “Dell OpenManage Server Administrator Managed Node (Windows - 32bit)” you should see ‘OM-SrvAdmin-Dell-Web-WIN*.exe’ when you expand the entry and Click on ‘Download’.
  2. Install the file you downloaded and follow the wizard.
  3. The OMSA services will start automatically in the background.

Verify SNMP Copied

Second, verify that you have SNMP network connectivity to the Dell server from the Monitor server, and that the Dell OpenManage agent is responding:

## snmpwalk -v 1 -c snmp-community-string dell-server |head -n20

This should output the first 20 lines of info from the OpenManage storage agent.

If you don’t get an answer, you may need to open some ports in the iptables/firewall or stop it.

Verify the plugin version Copied

Make sure that you have the latest version of the plugin. The plugin can be found in GitHub here.

If you are not using the latest version of this plugin, this needs to be downloaded to /opt/plugins/custom

Also, the check command needs to be updated. Go to Configure -> Commands.

Add a new check command:
 command_name: check_openmange_new
 command_line: $USER1$/custom/check_openmanage -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -C $ARG1$ ?perfdata ?info ?state

Add the service Copied

When you have confirmed connectivity from your OP5 Monitor server to OMSA, you need to add one service on the host-object you want to monitor. The required check-command, if not found in the web-config, can be imported using the function “Check Command Import” which you’ll find under ‘Configure’ -> ‘Commands’ -> ‘Related Items:’.

Add the following service:
service_description Hardware status
check_command check_openmanage
check_command_args snmp_community

Note: If you have updated the check_command, please use check_openmanage_new instead. If you have a full installation of OMSA, you may add a link to the OMSA web GUI as an action_url which can be found under ‘Extras’ on the service you are about to add. This will give you an easy way to reach the OMSA web GUI directly from the Service information page.

Add the action_url like this:
action_url https://$HOSTADDRESS$:1311/

Tip Copied

Add a new Dell hardware service group and add your newly created services to the group.

Related article: OP5 Monitor - How to monitor the hardware of your OP5 Monitor server

Known issues Copied

["Geneos"] ["FAQ"]

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