Tag Archives: PowerEdge

Dell PowerEdge – PERC RAID Card Importing / Using ‘Foreign’ Disks

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KB ID 0000639 

Problem

I bought some SAS disks from eBay to go in my Power Edge 2900 Server, and scratched my head for a while trying to get the PERC RAID controller to use them. I could only see them marked as ‘Foreign’. Probably because they did not have their original config ‘wiped’ off them before I bought them.

Solution

1. Boot the server, Press CTRL+R when prompted, then press ‘C’ to enter the Configuration Utility.

WARNING: DONT clear the config on the controller or you lose ALL your Virtual Disks / Arrays.

2. Select the controller > F2 > Foreign Config > Clear > Confirm.

3. You can now add the disk(s) as a new Virtual Disk.

4. I’m just presenting one 300GB SAS disk as RAID0 here.

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

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Accessing Dell ‘DRAC’ Fails – ‘DRAC5 Console Redirection Client Unable to launch application’

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KB ID 0000918

Problem

After I got a new laptop, I attempted to connect to my test server and was greeted with this error.

Application Error
Unable to launch the application

Name: DRAC5 Console Redirection Client
Publisher: Dell Inc
Location: {ip-address}:443

So I hit the details tab and got this,

Error: Missing required Permissions manifest attribute in main jar:
https://{ip-address}:443/plugins/vkvm/avctDRAC5Viewer.jar

Solution

Luckily I had seen a similar error a couple of weeks ago, while a colleague was trying to set up a Cisco ASDM. This is a ‘security feature’ of Java version 7 (Update 51). Work had pre-built my new laptop, so I simply downgraded to Java version 7 Update 45. And it burst into life.

DRAC 5 Java Workaround

Currently Dell consider DRAC5 EOL (End Of Life) and will not fix the certificate issue with updated firmware. Their official response is ‘Maintain an older version of Java’. So either downgrade or lower the security settings;

1. Windows Key + X > Control Panel.

2. Java > Security> Set to Medium.

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Original article written:19/02/14

Dell DRAC 5 – ‘Error when reading from SSL socket Connection’