Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Theoretical Limits for Dell In-Band & Out-of-Band Monitoring with SCOM

Although I work for Dell at the time of publishing, this post is not official Dell documentation.

Dell has SCOM management packs (MPs) that allow In-Band and Out-of-Band monitoring of Dell hardware.  There are some possible limits I want to make you aware of before you begin your testing and implementation of these solutions.  We will start with the background and describe the different options.

First, there are 2 primary MPs for monitoring Dell server hardware.
  • In-Band: This requires the installation of OMSA and the SCOM agent on the systems that you want to monitor.  Processing of data is done on the monitored system by the SCOM agent.  This is also much easier to setup.
  • Out-of-Band: This does not require OMSA or the SCOM agent, but does require setting up SMASH discovery through the iDrac, a license from Dell, and the Dell Connections License Manager.  Processing of data is done on the SCOM Management Server.  I have another post on how to set this up in a single SCOM management server environment.
Inside each of those MPs are 2 monitoring levels.
  • Scalable: Inventory and monitoring of component groups and also displays the presence of the iDrac. For Reports, only OpenManage Windows Event log is available.
  • Detailed: Detailed inventory and monitoring of the following components: memory, processors, network interfaces, storage controllers, disks, volume, power, temperature, and BIOS information.  For Reports, availability of BIOS configuration, firmware and driver versions, and RAID configuration reports.
    ***Note: More details on these in the Dell SCOM MP User Guide.

There are other factors that can blur or move these theoretical limits up or down.  Factors including whether the SCOM management servers are physical or virtual, specs of those physical/virtual machines, how much other monitoring is being done and the load on the SCOM servers, bandwidth, etc.

Please remember that these are not hard limits and are not official Dell documentation.

# of Dell servers supported per SCOM Management Server

Scalable Detailed
In-Band (Agent-Based) 1500 500
Out-of-Band (Agent-Free) 150 50

Your mileage may vary.  Please test before rolling out into production.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Install Windows 10 Technical Preview on Surface Pro

I tried to install Windows 10 Tech Preview on my Surface Pro 1 and had just a little difficulty.  Looking online I found some instructions in different places but not everything I had to do all in one place.  So here is my take on the process with all the instructions I needed.

Note: Do NOT use the Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool.  This tool formats the USB drive using NTFS.  The Surface is looking for a UEFI device which needs to be formatted as Fat32.


  1. Obligatory notes: Backup everything you need from your Surface before you start.
  2. Download the Windows 10 Technical Preview.
  3. Use a USB flash drive that is of sufficient size.  I needed just over 4GB.  So an 8GB drive would work.
  4. To create the install USB, open a command prompt and follow these directions.
    • Open an elevated command prompt, then start the Diskpart utility, List the disks, Select the USB stick, and Clean it:
      • Diskpart.exe
      • List disk
      • Select disk 4
      • Clean
    • Create a new partition, make it active, format as FAT32, and assign a drive letter:
      • Create part primary
      • Select part 1
      • Active
      • Format quick fs=fat32
      • Assign
      • Exit, but leave the command prompt open.
  5. Mount the Windows 10 ISO to a drive and then use the xcopy command in the already open command prompt to copy the files over.  In the below example the g: drive is where the ISO is mounted and the f: is where the USB is mounted.
      • xcopy g:\* f:\ /s /e
  6. Once that is done, now you have a USB ready to boot on the Surface but you may still need to copy over the Surface drivers just to be sure you have them.  Go to the following link, download the "Surface Pro 1" zip file.  Extract it and copy to your USB drive.  Now we need to prepare the Surface.
  7. There are 2 primary ways to disable Secure Boot.  Here is the easiest way.  First, make sure to shutdown the Surface.  Hold the Volume Up button down and press the Power once once.  When you see the Surface logo you can let go of the Volume Up button.  When you see the black screen with boot options, select Secure Boot and hit the space bar to change to disabled.  Save and reboot and you will see a red background screen indicating that Secure Boot is disabled.
  8. Plug in your USB and reboot the Surface.  It should boot directly into the Windows install.  *If you get a message about a missing media driver, reboot and try again.  This happened to me on 2 out of 2 I tried this on.  A simple reboot and it was able to keep going.

Monday, October 6, 2014

ConfigMgr Reports & Dell Server Administrator

ConfigMgr, in this case 2012 R2, Reports is showing older version of Dell "Server Administrator" but a newer version of OpenManage Server Administrator has been installed.

1. Latest version of OMSA was installed a couple weeks ago.
2. ConfigMgr Client Hardware Inventory was run in the last 24 hours.

So the ConfigMgr database should have the latest data.  But the Report is still showing that an old version of "Server Administrator" is still present.

We looked at the Resource Manager for a client showing this issues and found that there were two instances of "Server Administrator".  One of them was for the actual OMSA and the other was for omremote.exe, which is a file that DSET installs.

So, the old version of "Server Administrator" was actually the OMRemote.exe file installed with DSET.  DSET uses OMRemote.exe to do remote server report collection.  You can opt out of installing OMRemote during DSET install if you want and DSET will still run fine on the local system.

Customer wasn't using DSET, so solution was to uninstall it, force a new ConfigMgr Hardware Inventory, and run the report again.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

"Failed to insert OSD binaries into the WIM file" error

If you are using the Dell Server Deployment Pack 2.1.0.2 with Configuration Manager 2012 (SP1), and you want to upgrade to Configuration Manager 2012 R2, make sure that your site system operating system is Server 2012 R2.

If you try to use DSDP 2.1.0.2 with ConfigMgr 2012 R2 running on a site system using Server 2012, you will get an error message similar to the picture below when trying to Update Distribution Points with new Boot Images.  This error is because of a down-level OS with an up-level ConfigMgr because DISM is used to inject those drivers and DISM on the down-level OS cannot inject the drivers into an up-level boot image.

The prerequisites for DSDP 2.1.0.2 are documented in the Readme inside the DSDP 2.1 SP2 download package.

* Prerequisites of this service pack:
- System Center 2012 Configuration Manager R2 with kb#2907591,
          System Center 2012 Configuration Manager,
          System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1
- Dell Server Deployment Pack Version 2.1 or Dell Server Deployment Pack
 Version 2.1.0.1
- For System Center 2012 Configuration Manager R2 the supported Site system
 Operating  System is Windows Server 2012 R2

"Failed to insert OSD binaries into the WIM file"



There is a work around for this.  But you have to copy the boot image to another machine, running the newer DISM, and manually inject the drivers, copy the boot image back, and import it as a new boot image.  I have documented this here: http://bradsjumpbag.blogspot.com/2014/08/get-configmgr-to-configure-raid-array.html

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Walk-Through: Monitoring Dell Server Out-of-Band with SCOM 2012

Want to monitor Dell server hardware without installing OpenManage Server Administrator, or maybe you can't install OMSA.  This walk-through gives you the steps to get this to work.

This walk-through assumes you already have SCOM running and are familiar with it.  If you don't have SCOM 2012 running, check out Kevin Holman's quick start guide: http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2011/07/26/deploying-opsmgr-2012-a-quick-start-guide.aspx

Links for reference.
Dell Server Management Pack Suite (download and docs), 5.2 is the latest as of this post:
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/systems-management/w/wiki/4118.dell-server-management-pack-suite.aspx

Dell Connections License Manager, 1.1 is the latest as of this post:
This is where DCLM should be but this page has not been updated to include 1.1 yet.
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/systems-management/w/wiki/4921.dell-connections-license-manager.aspx
So use this one for DCLM 1.1: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverid=987Y6

License Management in Dell OpenManage Products using Dell Connections License Manager.  This PDF tells you how to get the licenses needed for Out-of-Band management.
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/extras/m/white_papers/20437073.aspx

Dell Connections License Manager Version 1.1 Installation Guide:
http://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/dell-connections-license-manager-v1.1_Setup%20Guide_en-us.pdf

Dell Connections License Manager Version 1.1 User's Guide:
ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_software/esuprt_ent_sys_mgmt/esuprt_ent_sys_mgmt_connections_license_mngr/dell-connections-license-manager-v1.1_User's%20Guide_en-us.pdf

System Center Monitoring Pack for WS-Management and SMASH Device Discovery:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29266

Now for the actual walk-through.  And the first rule of SCOM is if you think you have waited long enough for something to happen, double your wait time unless you know how to set the overrides to make things happen quicker.

1. Get your licenses for SCOM Out-of-Band management through your sales rep at Dell if you don't already have them.
2. Get DCLM installed. Right click and Run As Admin. This can be local on the SCOM box or a remote box.  It has a very small footprint but if SCOM is heavily used, DCLM might be better on another machine.  I'm not going to walk through the install of DCLM.  The Install guide above does a nice job of that.  Things to point out include:

  • Firewall ports 8543 and 8544 have to be opened.
  • Add the DCLM site to your Trusted Sites list on the SCOM server, and DCLM server if it is remote.
  • DCLM wants to create 3 groups in your Active Directory Users OU.  If you cannot install DCLM as a domain user that has necessary permissions to create those groups, you will have to create them manually. http://bradsjumpbag.blogspot.com/2014/06/dell-connections-license-manager-1011.html
  • Add your AD account that you use for administering SCOM to the Dell Connections License Administrators group.
  • Import your licenses into DCLM.  For Out-of-Band monitoring, the license should read "Dell Server Management Pack Suite for System Center Operations Manager.  This license is for monitoring X server via out of band."
3. Next, you need to install the Dell Server Management Pack Suite 5.2 to your SCOM 2012 server.  Right click and Run As Admin. The install will ask for credentials for the Dell Device Helper COM+ Object.  This account should most probably be a domain account that is also added as a local admin on the SCOM box.  After the MP is installed, the Dell Feature Management Dashboard will most likely be blank.  Leave it be for a while and continue with the next steps.

4. Download and install the System Center Monitoring Pack for WS-Management and SMASH Device Discovery from the link above.  After running the package, you may still have to go to Administration, Management Packs, and Import it.  Once that is done you should see 'WS-Management and SMASH Device Discovery" under Authoring, Management Pack Templates.

5. Setup SNMP on your iDracs.  Go to each iDrac and make sure the SNMP community string is exactly the same.  Capitalization matters.  "Public" and "public" are two different community strings, but "Public" and "Public" are the same.
There are two places to check.  iDrac Settings\Network\Services under SNMP Agent, and then Overview\Server\Alerts\SNMP and Email Settings. Under SNMP and Email Settings, you also need to enter the Alert Destination IP of your SCOM server and hit the Apply button in that same IP Destination List table.

6. Create a Community String account in SCOM using the community string you set on all iDracs. It doesn't matter, but I set this to More secure and distribute it to my SCOM management servers.  Less secure works too.  Then under profiles, open the SNMP Monitoring Account and on the Run As Accounts screen add the Community String account you created. Select "A selected class, group, or object, hit the Select button.  In the Look for field change to SNMP Community and hit Search.  Pick the SNMPCommunity_GUID that comes up and Add it.  Press OK and Save.

7. After the Feature Management State populates, you will activate features you want to use.  For the OOB we will be using the Server (Out-of-band) Monitoring.  Click on it to highlight and then in the lower right corner click on Set to Server (OOB) either Scalable or Detailed Feature.  The Detailed feature will give much more info including memory, processors, nics, storage controllers, disks and volumes, and BIOS info.  Let this process complete before closing the task window and scroll to the bottom of that window to make sure it completed successfully.

8. Next, you need to configure the connection from SCOM to DCLM.  On the Feature Management Dashboard, on the lower right under Tasks, look for and click on "Configure License Server".  Click the Override button.  Expand out the window and columns so you can see the full default value.  Copy that for the License Web UI URL and License Web Service URL but enter your IP or FQDN to your DCLM server.  For example: http://10.10.100.7:8544 and http://10.10.100.7:8543.  Press the Override button at the bottom and then Run.  Let this run and make sure it completes successfully.

You can verify that it should work by clicking the link to Launch Dell Connection License Manager in the tasks area and being able to browse and see your licenses.

After several more minutes, you should see number of licenses you have in DCLM show up under the Total Node Licenses column in the Dell Feature Management Dashboard.

Now we will use the Dell Server MP Suite 5.2 for SCOM User Guide for configuring the WS-Management Monitor.  I'm just going to copy the steps and past them here with some of my own notes added.

To discover a Dell server using the Dell Server (Out-of-band) monitoring feature:
1. Log on to OpsMgr 2012 as an administrator for the OpsMgr Management group.
2. On the OpsMgr console, click Authoring.
3. At the bottom of the navigation pane, click Add Monitoring Wizard.
The Add Monitoring Wizard screen appears.
4. On the Select Monitoring Type screen, select WS-Management and SMASH Device Discovery and
click Next.
5. On the General Properties screen, in the Name field provide a name for the wizard.
6. Under Management pack, click New.
The Create a Management Pack screen appears.
7. Provide a name for the management pack in the Name field and click Next.
For information on creating a management pack, see the OpsMgr documentation at
technet.microsoft.com.
8. Click Create.
The management pack you created is selected in the Management pack drop-down box.
9. Click Next.
10. On the Specify the target drop-down menu, select a resource pool for monitoring out-of-band
devices and click Next.
11. On the Specify the account to be used to run discovery screen, click New and create a Simple
Authentication Run As Account.  This Simple Authentication Run As Account will be the credentials used to access the iDrac.  I have added the steps to manually create the account and associate it to the SMASH profile below.

12. Select the Run As Account you created from the Run As Account drop-down menu and click Next.
13. Click Add.
14. On the Add Devices screen specify the iDRAC IP address of the systems you want to monitor using 
the Server (out-of-band) monitoring feature. You can specify the iDRAC IP address of the systems by:
• Scanning the IP Subnet that you provided.
• Scanning a specified IP Range.
• Importing a text file containing the list of iDRAC IP addresses.
15. Click Advanced Options, select the Skip CA Check and Skip CN Check option and click OK.
16. Click Scan for Devices to search for Dell PowerEdge 12G systems on your network.
The IP addresses are listed under Available Devices.
17. Click Add to add the list of IP addresses you want to monitor and click OK.
18. On the Specify the devices you want to monitor screen, click Create.
19. Click Close.

The scanned Dell servers initially appear in Monitoring → WS-Management and SMASH Monitoring 
→ WS-Management Device State screen. After the automatically triggered SMASH discovery is 
completed by the OpsMgr, the Dell servers appear in Monitoring → WS-Management and SMASH 
Monitoring → SMASH Device State screen.

This is the end unless you need to manually configure the Simple Authentication account and/or associate it with the SMASH profile.

Creating A Simple Authentication Run As Account
1. Log on to OpsMgr 2012 as an administrator for the OpsMgr Management Group.
2. On the OpsMgr console, click Administration.
3. Right-click Accounts, and then click Create Run As Account.
The Create Run As Account Wizard screen is displayed.
4. Click Next.
5. From the Run As Account type drop-down menu, select Simple Authentication.
6. Provide a display name in the Display Name text box.
7. Provide a brief description in the Description text box and click Next.
8. On the Credentials screen provide the iDRAC login credentials for the systems you want to discover
using the Server (Out-Of-Band) monitoring feature.
9. Click Next.
10. Select the Less secure or More secure option as appropriate.
For more information, see the OpsMgr documentation at technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/
hh321655.aspx.
NOTE: If the iDRAC login credentials are different for each of the systems, create a separate
Run As Account for each of them.
11. Click Create.
12. After the Run As Account has been created, click Close.

Associating Run As Account For Monitoring A Dell Server Using The Server (Out-Of-Band) Monitoring Feature
For monitoring the Dell server, the Run As account used to discover it must be associated with the Dell
server in the SMASH Device Monitoring Profile. The management pack performs the association
automatically. But in some cases, you have to manually associate the Run As account.
To manually associate the Run As account in the SMASH Device Monitoring Profile:
1. Launch OpsMgr 2012, and click Administration.
2. In the Administration pane, browse to Run As Configuration → Profiles.
3. From the list of available profiles, right-click SMASH Device Monitoring Profile and click Properties.
The Introduction screen is displayed.
4. Click Next.
The Specify the Run As profile's general properties screen is displayed.
5. Click Next.
The Run As accounts screen is displayed.
6. Click Add.
The Add a Run As account screen is displayed.
7. Select the run as account used to discover the Dell server from the Run As account drop-down list.
NOTE: If you are using multiple Run As accounts to discover devices, associate each device 
with its associated Run As account.
8. Click A selected class, group, or object and add the association for the server in the SMASH 
Monitoring Profile.
• Click Select → Class option, use Dell server as the selection.
• Click Select → Group option, use the group containing the Dell server objects as the selection.
• Click Select → Object option, use the individual Dell server object as the selection.
9. Click OK.
10. Click Save and Close.
NOTE: If the Run As Account association is not done, the alert Dell OM: Server and its component 
health computation failed is displayed under Monitoring → Alerts View → Server Alerts on the 
console.

How to Get ConfigMgr to Configure RAID Array on Dell PERC during OSD

Depending on which PERC you have (I was using a PowerEdge R720 with a PERC H710P), the DSDP and DTK may not inject the most appropriate driver for the "Set RAID Config" step to actually configure the controller during OSD.

*************
Edit 8/26/2014: This has been found to possibly be an issue with up-level ConfigMgr and down-level OS.  Below is the work-around for an issue described here: http://bradsjumpbag.blogspot.com/2014/08/failed-to-insert-osd-binaries-into-wim.html
*************

Here are the steps needed to get this working until the correct driver is injected automatically.  As of this post, the DTK and DSDP are only injecting the percsas3 driver and not the percsas2 driver.

A high level overview of this process: Get the boot image and inject the needed drivers using dism, re-import the boot image into ConfigMgr and make it usable again.

1. Right click on the boot image you are using in ConfigMgr and go to Properties.  On the Data Source tab you can see the Image Path.  Go to that location where the image is stored.  It should be similar to "\\SCCMServer\SMS_Site\OSD\Lib\BootImages\Dell\PowerEdge\x64\bootxxxx.wim".

Copy that wim file and paste it in the following step.

2. You will need a server running the same version of Dism as the version of the boot wim.  For example, if the boot wim is OS Version 6.3.9600.16384, you will need to copy the wim from #1 above to a server running Server 2012 R2 (you can see the OS Version column in Boot Images in ConfigMgr).  Paste that wim file to that server.  I just put mine in the root of C:\.

3. From a workstation without a PERC, go to www.dell.com/support.  You can either enter your service tag or click on "Servers, Storage & Networking"/PowerEdge/Model.  Then click on Drivers & Downloads.  Select your operating system in the dropdown.  Scroll down to and expand SAS RAID.  Find and download the Windows driver.  For this example I am using the "Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 64 bit driver for Dell PERC H310/H170/H710P/H810/SPERC8 Controllers" located here:
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=0P5XV&fileId=3389791240&osCode=W12R2&productCode=poweredge-r720&languageCode=EN&categoryId=SF

4. This is being done on a workstation without a PERC so that you can extract the drivers without having it actually install.  Double click on the executable you just downloaded and click the Install button, but nothing else.  The install will fail but do not close it yet.  While the failed notice is still on the screen, browse to c:\users\YourLoggedInUser\Appdata\Local\Temp and find the folder that was just created based on time.  It will be a GUID.  Open that folder and you will find another folder with the drivers.  Copy that folder out and put it on your server where the wim was copied to.  I put mine in a folder called c:\perc.

So to this point we now have copied our bootxxxx.wim to C:\ on a server running the same OS version as the boot image; copied the needed drivers to C:\perc on the same server.

Next we will mount that image, inject the drivers, and commit the changes.

5. From an elevated PowerShell command windows, make another folder on this server called C:\Mount.  Then run the following commands.

This will mount that wim into the C:\Mount folder for editing.
"dism /Mount-wim /WimFile:C:\bootxxxx.wim /Index:1 /MountDir:C:\Mount"
replace bootxxxx.wim with the actual name of your file.  WinPE boot images usually only have 1 index so Index should always be 1.

Inject the drivers from C:\perc.
"dism /Image:C:\Mount /Add-Driver /Driver:C:\perc /Recurse"
Make sure all drivers were injected successfully.

Commit changes and unmount the image.
"dism /Unmount-wim /MountDir:C:\Mount /Commit"
If you have any File Explorer windows open to the C:\Mount folder, the commit may fail.  Close windows and try again.

6. Now the bootxxxx.wim file should show a modified date and time along with a slightly larger size than before.  Move this bootxxxx.wim to your sources folder, or other UNC accessible share path on your ConfigMgr server.

7. In ConfigMgr, right click on the Boot Images node and select "Dell PowerEdge Server Deployment\Create Dell Server Boot Image".  Mark the radial button for "Use a custom boot image" and enter the path to that new bootxxxx.wim.  The Boot Image should only show the first Index.  Press Next and give a name, version, and any comments for the new boot image we are creating.  Continue through the wizard and after a little processing time you should have a new boot image listed in ConfigMgr.

8. Open the properties of this new boot image.  On the Customization tab, make sure "Enable command support" is checked.  On the Data Source tab, mark "Deploy this boot image from the PXE-enabled distribution point".  On the Data Access tab, mark "Copy the content in this package to a package share on distribution points".  Press Ok.

9. Right click on the new boot image and Distribute Content.  Distribute to any and all DPs that you will be used for OSD.  refresh and check the status to make sure it succeeds.  You can also look at the Image ID on that boot image and then on each DP look in the SMSPKGDrive$ folder for that Image ID and make sure the bootxxxx.wim is there.

10. Go to your Task Sequences.  Right click on the TS you want to use and go to Properties, not Edit.  On the Advanced tab you can update the box for "Use a boot image" to this new image.  Press Ok.

11. Now go boot your server that you are trying to deploy to.  I like to go into the controller (CTRL+R) when possible and clear the config.  Then reboot to PXE and now the "Set RAID config" step should be able to access your PERC and try to configure it.

Press F8 during the task sequence so that you can stop it from rebooting just in case it doesn't work.  From here you open cmtrace and check out the SMSTS.log or run diskpart and type "list disk".  If "list disk" shows the drives now, it is working.  If not, open X:\Windows\Temp\Smsts\SMSTS.log to find the next error.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

How to clean out old OpenManage driver packages and replace them in Configuration Manager 2012

To clean out the imported OpenManage driver bundles from ConfigMgr and replace with newer or the same versions.  This works for any version of OM driver bundles but for this example I will use the last version and latest version at the time of this writing as examples (OM7.3.2 and OM7.4).  Some of these delete folder steps may need to be done on each DP.

  1. Write down the Package ID first for each one drive package, or take a screenshot.  Then delete the Driver Packages and folders.
  2. Go to the same driver folders labeled as "Dell PowerEdge Drivers OM7.3.2" in the Drivers sections in ConfigMgr.  Highlight all of the drivers listed, right click and delete them.  Then delete the folder as well.
  3. Remove the folders labeled as "Dell PowerEdge Drivers OM7.3.2" also from both Drivers Packages and Drivers.
  4. Go to the ConfigMgr Installation location which is normally "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager".  From here you will go down and delete the OM7.3.2 folders for the same versions you deleted from inside ConfigMgr in the following folders.
    1. "\OSD\Lib\DriverPackages\Dell\PowerEdge\"
    2. "\OSD\Lib\Drivers\Dell\PowerEdge\"
  5. Go to the drive where your DP Shares are located.  For example, if they are on the E: drive you would go to "E:\SMSPKGE$\".  If they are on the G: drive you would go to "G:\SMSPKGG$".  Delete each Package ID folder that you copied back in Step 1 for each Driver Package.  These folders may just be empty shells at this point.

Now the old versions are cleaned out and you are ready to import new versions.  These driver packages can only be imported from the Dell System Management Tools and Documentation (SMTD) iso.  Do not use the SBUU, CDU, or SUU iso or your drivers will not be imported correctly.

  1. First, mount the SMTD 7.4 iso in Server 2012 by double clicking on it so that it will appear like a DVD drive.
  2. Right click on Drive Packages and select the "Dell Server Driver package\Import Dell PowerEdge Server Driver Packages" option.
  3. Select the drive letter that the OM7.4 iso is mounted it.
  4. Select the server models and OS versions you want to import and let it run.
  5. Right click on each driver package that you imported and go to Properties. On the Data Access tab, check the box "Copy the content in this package to a package share on distribution points".  Press OK.
  6. After each of those is done, right click on each driver package and Distribute Content.  Select your DPs and then give it some time to distribute.  The amount of time will depend on # of DPs, locations, network, etc.
  7. Check the Content Status for an updated date and time and green pie chart.  You can also verify distribution to each DP by going to the SMSPKGdrive$ folder and verify the PackageID folder is created and drivers are there.

********* Note here*********  I have noticed that drivers do not always fully distribute.  Your SMSPKGdrive$\PackageID folder may only have one GUID sub-folder.  In this case, just Update the Distribution Points again for the same package and make sure the content status shows success.


  1. Now just go back to your Task Sequences, Edit, and on the Apply Driver Package step just add the new package.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Intel driver install missing or corrupt help.cab

Ever try to install Intel nic drivers and get an error message similar to "installation failed. Missing or corrupted file: Help.cab"?

Here is the quick and easy way to resolve this.

1. Rename or delete the following folders:
"C:\Program Files\Intel"
"C:\Program Files(x86)\Intel"

2. Export and then delete the following registry key:
HKLM\Software\Intel

3. Right click on the Intel install package and Run As Admin.

That is it.  Now the install will run successfully.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Dell Connections License Manager 1.0/1.1 AD Groups

Dell Connections License Manager 1.0 and 1.1 will create three groups in your Active Directory if the account you use to install DCLM has enough permissions in AD.  If for whatever reason the install account doesn't have enough permissions to create groups in AD, you can create them manually.

These are the three groups and they must be named exactly.

1. Dell Connections License Administrators
2. Dell Connections License Operators
3. Dell Connections License Users

DCLM 1.1 contains several fixes including authentication recursion in the above groups.  In DCLM 1.0, the user account had to be placed directly into the Administrators or Users group.  In 1.1, you can now put a user or several users into a group, such as "SCOM Admins", and then nest that "SCOM Admins" group inside the Dell Connections License Administrators or Users groups.

Friday, May 23, 2014

Update iDrac6 or iDrac7 firmware with ConfigMgr 2012

Update iDrac6 or iDrac7 firmware with ConfigMgr 2012

There are multiple ways to update iDrac firmware.  Recently I had a customer request that it be done specifically with ConfigMgr 2012 because they didn't want to install any other tools at the time.  So here is how to do it silently for iDrac6 and iDrac7.

First we have to get the iDrac firmware version from all servers by adding the class to the hardware inventory.
  1. Default Client Settings, Hardware Inventory, Add, Connect, servername, wmi namespace = root\cimv2\dell, check recursive.  Check DELL_Firmware.  Press OK all the way out to save.  This will also give you the Lifecycle Controller firmware version on the servers.
  2. Trigger an event or wait for the Machine Policy Update to run.
  3. Trigger an event or wait for the Hardware Inventory Policy to run. 

Next, we need to create collections based on iDrac generation.  There may be other ways to do this but I like to create a folder and then inside each folder you can put the collections. You just have to change the query rule next time you are ready to update all the iDracs to whatever the latest version is at that time.
  1. Create one folder called iDrac6 and one called iDrac7.
  2. Create a collection called iDrac6 to show all machines with this iDrac under the folder for iDrac6.
    1. Use a Query rule to look for Dell_Firmware: Name equal to iDRAC6
  3. Create a collection called iDrac7 to show all machines with this iDrac under the folder for iDrac7.
  4. Create a collection called iDrac7 under the iDrac7 folder.
    1. Use a Query rule to look for Dell_Firmware: Name equal to iDRAC7
  5. Create a collection called iDrac6 - less than latest firmware
    1. Limit to iDrac6 collection
    2. Use a Query rule to look for Dell_Firmware: Version not equal to whatever the latest version is.
  6. Create a collection called iDrac7 - less than latest firmware
    1. Limit to iDrac7 collection
    2. Use a Query rule to look for Dell_Firmware: Version not equal to whatever the latest version is.

Now we create the package for each new version.
  1. Download the Update Package for Windows from Dell and put it in your source location.
  2. Create the iDrac6 firmware package.
    1. Select to Copy the content in the package to a package share on DPs.
  3. Distribute the package to the DPs.
  4. Create a new program in the iDrac6 package and name it after the firmware version.
    1. Will look similar to this “ESM_Firmware_G6N28_WN32_1.97_A00.EXE /s”.  The /s on  the end tells it to do a silent install.
    2. Run Normal or Hidden, Whether or not a user is logged on, and Suppress program notifications.
  5. Deploy the package and program to the iDrac6 – Less than latest collection created earlier.
  6. Repeat the same steps for the iDrac7 package making the necessary changes.



Thursday, May 22, 2014

Dell Connection License Manager 1.0 with Dell SCOM Management Pack 5.1

Here are some tips for getting the Server OOB licensing to work when you install the Dell SCOM MP and connect to the Dell Connections License Manager.

****Update: This issue has been resolved with DCLM 1.1.  DCLM 1.1 was released 5/23/2014 and the Dell SCOM MP 5.2 was released on 5/8/2014.****

Using Dell SCOM MP 5.1 and DCLM 1.0

1. Install DCLM on the SCOM server if possible.
2. Make sure you have the correct type of license imported into DCLM.  It should read "Dell Server Management Pack Suite for System Center Operations Manager. This license is for monitoring X server via out of band".
3. Use the same AD account for the Dell Device Helper COM+ object and the Operations Manager Action Account.

4. And here is the big tip.  That same AD account should be put directly into the Dell Connection License Manager Administrator group in Active Directory.  You cannot put the account in a group and nest that group in the DCLM Adminsistrators group.  It will not work.  The Action Account must be directly in the DCLM Administrators group.

5. From the Dell Feature Management Dashboard in SCOM, make sure you can Launch the Dell Connections License Manager (in the lower right Task pane) and you can see the licenses in DCLM once it opens.  You may need to add the URL to your Trusted Sites.

6. Refresh the Dashboard and your licenses for Out-of-Band Monitoring should show up correctly under Dell Feature Management Dashboard.