6.0 on Dell 1850 with DRAC4 management card?

[Marian Hettwer]

Ralph Hempel wrote:
> 
>> I've never enabled the DRAC card on any dell I have that came with
>> them...
> 
> 
> Hmmm. The DRAC card can save you a long drive sometimes. You actually
> get to look at the hardware boot process and can even adjust
> BIOS settings if needed. To get to a FreeBSD console, I think that
> the OS actually needs to boot.
> 
> The DRAC lets you control the server BEFORE the OS is even loaded,
> all through a browser interface.
>
Well, you can do that too, if you enable Console Redirection to Serial
Port in the BIOS. The old DELL 1550 and 1650 were definetly capable of
doing so. I don't know about the 1850, but I assume they can redirect
the console too.
Usually the BIOS accepts VT100 or ANSI input. Of course you want to go
with VT100. And from your workstation:

export TERM=vt100
ssh user:server at console-server

and of you go.
The only thing missing would be hardware power down. if that can be done
via DRAC, that'll be an advantage :)

- Marian