Monthly Archives: January 2016

Installing or Updating OpenManage on ESXi Hosts

Assuming you are using Dell Servers, you might be interested to know that you can install and use the Dell Open Manage Server Administrator application on your ESXi hosts and manage their hardware in nearly the same way you can use it on your windows servers’ hardware. First, OpenManage needs to be downloaded,  you can find it here: OpenManage. Make sure to download both the windows version (for the system that will be managing the ESXi host) as well as the version that matches your ESXi version.

Next, we need to move the vib over to the host. The way i do this is with a tool call WinSCP which can be found here

Enabling SSH on ESXi host

  1. Connect to the host with the vSphere Client
  2. Select the Host, and then click the “Configuration” tab
  3. Click “Security Profile” from the bottom right-hand box
  4. Click “Properties…” in the row titled “Services”
  5. Highlight “SSH” and then click “Options…”
  6. Click “Start”
  7. Click “OK”

Moving file to host with WinSCP

  1. Open WinSCP and enter the following:
    1. File Protocol: SCP
    2. Hostname: <IP Address of Host>
    3. Username: root
    4. Password: <root password>
  2. When prompted click “Yes” to accept the private key of the server
  3. In the right hand pane find the folder called /tmp and double click on it.
  4. In the left hand pane, locate the .vib on your PC and then copy it into the /tmp folder.

Installing OpenManage

  1. place the host in maintenance mode
  2. SSH into the host using putty
  3. Enter the following command, making adjustments to the file name to match that of your vib:

Now reboot the host.

Updating the OpenManage on the host

  1. place the host in maintenance mode
  2. SSH into the host using putty
  3. Enter the following command to confirm open mange is installed on host, scroll up looking for VIBs from “Dell” and then verify that “OpenManage” is in the list
  4. Next, run the following command to remove the existing version of the open manage:
  5. Lastly follow the installation instructions above, to install the newest version.

Managing the Host

  1. Install the windows version of the software that was downloaded earlier on you management system
  2. Double click on the OpenManage application once installed,
  3. Enter the following:
    1. Hostname/IP Address: This is your host’s IP
    2. Username: root
    3. Password: root password
    4. Ignore Certificate Warnings: Checked

Now you can manage your host’s Dell hardware as if it were any windows system with Open Manage installed.

NOTE: Annoyingly, both the MGMT system and the hosts must be using the same version of the software, in this example that was OpenManage 8.2