How to install Dell OpenManage 5.3.0 on a XEN host

We're beginning to deploy XenServer at work as our virtualization platform. One thing that detracted from Xen during our comparison with VMWare was that VMWare and Dell worked together to get OpenManage supported on ESX.

As of the moment, Xen doesn't officially support running OpenManage on Xen, although they will shortly offer official support.

To get OpenManage working now, albeit in an unsupported fashion, I was helpfully sent the following KB article from XEN (which somehow I didn't see when searching their forums). My only changes to the guide are:

• I used OM_5.3.0_ManNode_A00.tar.gz instead of 5.2.0
• I used the XenServer 4.1 beta
  
• The line numbers in "setup.sh" for OpenManage 5.3.0 that needs to be changed are 2972 and 2973
• It is not necessary under the 4.1 beta (and probably higher) to run the "yum install" command as a newer version of the referenced .rpm file is already installed
• EDIT 2008-05-08:
  
• Some steps may need to be taken after install to resolve OM being unable to poll for inventory. See this article for details.
  
• For production systems I've been skipping the installation of setup.sh's item #2, "Server Administrator Web Server". The web GUI seems to take an additional 100-120M of memory when installed. Leaving this out only increases the Xen host footprint by a few megs.
  

Dell OpenManage 5.3.0 can be downloaded from here.
Xen's original article can be found here. A copy/paste of it is below:

Using Dell OpenManage on a XenServer Host
Author: Christoph Berlin, Created on: Nov 13, 2007 12:13 PM

---

Summary

Dell OpenManage is a management software suitethat allows you to monitor and manage physical Dell servers. Thissoftware package is available for RedHat Enterprise Linux 4.

TheXenServer Host runs Xen on a bare-bones CentOS Linux operating system,which is very similar to RedHat Enterprise Linux 4. It should thereforebe feasible to install OpenManage on a XenServer Host and manage it aswith any other Linux server.

This document shows you how to install Dell OpenManage on a XenServer Host.

Note: Using OpenManage on a XenServer Host is an unsupported configuration. Dell does not support installing the Dell OpenManage management software on CentOS. XenSource does not support installing any additional packagaes on the XenServer Host.

Procedure

1. Download the Dell OpenManage Server Administrator Managed Node software package for RedHat Enterprise Linux 5. You will find a selection of packages on the Dell support homepage.
   
2. Copy the tar.gz file to your XenServer Host.
   
3. Extract the tar.gz file by using the command
   # tar -xzf yourfilename.tar.gz
   
4. Normally this setup script would fail because the CentOS operating system is not identical RedHat Enterprise Linux 4, but you can edit the script so that it will run on CentOS as well, as follows:
   
   1. First, change the permissions of the file:
      # chmod +w setup.sh
      
      
   2. Then, edit the file:
      # vi setup.sh
      
      
   3. Then, go to line 2976 and change the lines
      # Set default values for return variables.
      GBL_OS_TYPE=${GBL_OS_TYPE_UKNOWN}
      GBL_OS_TYPE_STRING="UKNOWN"
      
      to
      # Set default values for return variables.
      GBL_OS_TYPE=${GBL_OS_TYPE_RHEL5}
      GBL_OS_TYPE_STRING="RHEL5"
      
      
   4. Save changes and close the file.
      
5. Install the package compat-libstdc++-296-2.96-138.i386.rpm on the XenServer Host:
   # yum install compat-libstdc++-296-2.96-138.i386.rpm
   
   
6. Start the Dell OpenManage installation by using the command:
   # ./setup.sh
   
   
7. Follow the instructions on the screen and finish the installation.
   
8. After installation finishes successfully, you have to change your firewall settings to allow communication through the ports that OpenManage uses, as follows:
   
   1. Edit the firewall file:
      # vi /etc/sysconfig/iptables
      
      
   2. Add the following lines:
      -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 1311 -j ACCEPT
      
      
   3. Save and close the file.
      
9. Restart the firewall service:
   # service iptables restart
   
   
10. Now should be able to connect to the Dell OpenManage web interface of your server. Point your browser to https://yourserver:1311/ and login with your root user and password.
    

Tested with: OM_5.2.0_ManNode_A00.tar.gz

Powershell method for testing for NULL

I guess this is obvious, but I was looking for means of evaluating whether or not a variable was null by trying:

If ($Varable -eq NUL) {some action}

Which of course caused an error. VBScript has the IsNull(value) function, but there I could find no results googling for a similar one in PowerShell.

It turns out, this is much simpler than I was making it out to be:

To see if a variable is null, simply check:

If (!$Variable) {some action}

Conversely, to verify if the variable has any value:

If ($Variable) {some action}

*sigh* sometimes the simple answers take the longest to find ;-)