how to coerce OMSA 5.1 to install & run properly on CentOS 4 (part III)

Here is the summary of what I did for OMSA 5.1 on CentOS 4.1 ( the white-box twin of RHAS 4.1)

For installation, on a CentOS 4.1 without OpenIPMI or net-snmp, you just need to

1. append /etc/redhat-release with "Nahant", RHEL 4's code name.

1c1
< CentOS release 4.1 (Final) Nahant --- > CentOS release 4.1 (Final)
2. start installation by running ./linux/suppportscripts/srvadmin-install.sh
After installation, answer NO to start start all services. Instead, conduct the following steps first:
1. insert a line 'test -e /dev/ipmi0 || mknod -m 0600 /dev/ipmi0 c 253 0' at the beginning of /etc/init.d/dsm_sa_ipmi. w/o it, /etc/init.d/dsm_sa_ipmi will fail miserablly. It seems that udev doesn't put /dev/ipmi0 back as expected.
22,24d21 < # my hack < test -e /dev/ipmi0 || mknod -m 0600 /dev/ipmi0 c 253 0 < #
2. insert '/etc/init.d/dsm_sa_ipmi start' at the beginning of 'start' section inside /usr/bin/srvadmin- services.sh
w/o it, srvadmin-services.sh start will fail with IPMI drivers fail to load. However, if you start IPMI manually by '/etc/init.d/dsm_sa_ipmi start', you'd be just fine.
241,243d240 < # my hack::ipmi failed to start when called from later this script < /etc/init.d/dsm_sa_ipmi start <
3. now start it all with /usr/bin/srvadmin-services.sh start
4. verify it with ' omreport chassis temps' and 'omreport storage controller '. These two rely on different things to work. I'll elaborate on this later.

The rc scripts are placed in the S50 instead of their own start sequence number mandated in the scripts. I corrected them manually with my understanding of chkconfig directives in the scripts. However, I didn't get to change run level to test whether that would guarantee OMSA startup succesfully, since all my boxens are in production. Besides, Hobbit Monitor will let me know soon enough upon such failure.

It is such a great relief to have constant & comprehensive monitoring against critical systems. As a system engineer, you don't have to make all these mental or paper notes to check this or that. A decent NMS will do its job to nag you (whether you like or not) when necessary.

How to coerce OMSA 5.1 to install & run properly on CentOS 4

To monitor Dell PowerEdge servers running Linux, I downloaded OMSA (Open Manage Server Assistant) 5.1 package for Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 (RHEL4) on a bunch of Dell PowerEdge 6850 servers. The package was listed under 'system management' of the 'drivers & download' section. The actual file name is 'OM_5.1_ManNode_LIN_A00.tar.gz'.

On the PE6850 server, I unpacked the tarball, and attempted to install using the srvadmin-install.sh. It failed silently, with an error code of 2.
# supportscripts/srvadmin-install.sh
# echo $?
2
Examing srvadmin-install.sh closely, I realized that it didn't support CentOS 4. Instead, it supports & detects RHEL4 by its code node 'Nahant'. Instead of mucking the code to support CentOS, I decided to fake RHEL4 by modifying /etc/redhat-release.
# cat /etc/redhat-release
fake RHEL 4 Nahant
It worked.The installation went a-ok and all services started properly. 'omreport storage controllers' now reports various information on various storage controllers.

Thinking the faking was needed only by the installation scripts, I reverted /etc/redhat-release to its original version. To be sure, I restarted OMSA by ' srvadmin-services.sh stop|start'. Well, it didn't pan out that well.

# /usr/bin/srvadmin-services.sh start
Starting mptctl:
Waiting for mptctl driver registration to complete:
[ OK ] Starting Systems Management Device Drivers:
Starting dell_rbu: [ OK ]
Starting ipmi driver: [FAILED]
Starting Systems Management Device Drivers:
Starting dell_rbu: Already started [ OK ]
Starting ipmi driver: [FAILED]
Starting DSM SA Shared Services: [ OK ]

Starting DSM SA Connection Service: [ OK ]

Now it seemed the srvadmin-ipmi package's init script still relies on /etc/redhat-release to tell it which OS it is running on. The server doesn't have OpenIPMI installed. Without any IPMI driver loaded, no report can be run against storage or temps using OMSA.

To have it work for both world (OMSA and CentOS), I cooked up this /etc/redhat-release by appending the RHEL4 code name to the original /etc/redhat-release
# cat /etc/redhat-release.fake
CentOS release 4.4 (Final) Nahant
# /usr/bin/srvadmin-services.sh start
Starting mptctl:
Waiting for mptctl driver registration to complete: [ OK ] Starting Systems Management Device Drivers:
Starting dell_rbu: [ OK ]
Starting ipmi driver: [ OK ]
Starting Systems Management Data Engine:
Starting dsm_sa_datamgr32d: [ OK ]
Starting dsm_sa_eventmgr32d: [ OK ]
Starting DSM SA Shared Services: [ OK ]
Starting DSM SA Connection Service: [ OK ]

This cooked /etc/redhat-release had been verified to work well with 'yum -y update' and OMSA's 'srvadmin-services.sh start'