CentOS 7 Dell Server Setup

CentOS servers are supported by the Dell Linux software repository. Adding the repository will let you install and keep up to date things like the Dell iDRAC Service Module as well as Dell OMSA.

Yum Repository

First run the bootstrap script that Dell provides on the Dell EMC System Update page:

curl -s http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/dsu/bootstrap.cgi | bash

The above bootstrap script will import the Dell GPG key and create the file /etc/yum.repos.d/dell-system-update.repo, you can then use yum to manage the packages.

Dell iDRAC Service Module

The Dell iDRAC Service Module (DCISM) connects to the iDRAC to export various OS related information. It can be installed with yum:

yum install dcism

The dcism service can be stopped/started as required with systemctl:

systemctl dcismeng.service stop
systemctl dcismeng.service start

Dell OMSA

The Dell OpenManage Server Administrator tools can also be installed with yum:

yum install srvadmin-all

After install, the services can be started with the srvadmin-services.sh shell script:

/opt/dell/srvadmin/sbin/srvadmin-services.sh start

Start Dell OMSA on boot

The srvadmin-services.sh script appears to give an option to enable to start on boot which doesn’t appear to be working for CentOS.

Instead, a systemd services file can be added.

  1. Create the file /etc/systemd/system/dell-omsa.service
  2. Put the following contents into the file:
[Unit]
Description=Dell OpenManage Server Administrator
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
User=root
Group=root
RemainAfterExit=true
ExecStart=/opt/dell/srvadmin/sbin/srvadmin-services.sh start
ExecStop=/opt/dell/srvadmin/sbin/srvadmin-services.sh stop
ExecReload=/opt/dell/srvadmin/sbin/srvadmin-services.sh restart

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
  1. Enable the service to start on boot:
systemctl enable dell-omsa.service

If you do not have the service running already, you can then start the process with systemctl start dell-omsa.service.

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