Cisco CIMC Remote Access Console

Hi Chuck

It might be possible, it also depends what you mean by "native" support. Are you talking about adding a web session like iDRAC (Web) or iLO (Web), where it just gives access to the KVM management page and HTML virtual console (which I see relatively modern Cisco systems support)? Or are you talking about a properly integrated native console session, like we have for DRAC and iLO (and that fundamentally feels like VNC or RDP to the system, embedded directly in RDM)?

Please, let me know if something isn't clear or you have other questions

Hi Chuck

It might be possible, it also depends what you mean by "native" support. Are you talking about adding a web session like iDRAC (Web) or iLO (Web), where it just gives access to the KVM management page and HTML virtual console (which I see relatively modern Cisco systems support)? Or are you talking about a properly integrated native console session, like we have for DRAC and iLO (and that fundamentally feels like VNC or RDP to the system, embedded directly in RDM)?

Please, let me know if something isn't clear or you have other questions

Richard,

I have never been able to get the Native iDRAC working within RDM, so I didn't know there was the ability to mirror a KVM / RDP type functionality.

That would be awesome if it could be integrated.

I currently have to utilize iDRAC/CIMC's via a Google Chrome session.

Hey Chuck

What's your DRAC generation and firmware version?

Thanks and best regards,

Hey Chuck

What's your DRAC generation and firmware version?

Thanks and best regards,

The Dell's are iDRAC 8 Enterprise
F/W Version: 2.86.86.86

Hi Chuck

Thanks for the information. I'm eager to see why connecting to a DRAC won't work before tackling the Cisco question.

To my knowledge, all the DRAC 8 use the Avocent protocol for the virtual console. So, it should work in the "DRAC" session type (not web) by choosing either "Automatic" for the connection mode and selecting the port of the management web interface (typically 443) or choosing "Native" for the connection mode and leaving the port at "Default" (assuming you haven't customized the remote console port, which IIRC is 5900).

I don't know when you most recently tried this, but there was a regression sometime around the mid-2024.2 release cycle that broke this particular scenario (we updated a core dependency that deals with TLS, and regrettably broke a few features). But I know that is fixed in the 2024.3 version(s).

Let me know if you can try that again on the latest version.

To extrapolate a bit on your original question, these KVMs are a bit of a mess when it comes to the actual protocol used for the remote console. iLO uses a bespoke protocol, however we were able to lean on the work of others that already did a lot of the work to figure that out. DRAC generation 8 and earlier uses a bespoke protocol licensed from Avocent, where we could only get a working implementation by studying the binary firmware. Later DRACs use a modified version of VNC which is a lot easier to understand and implement. I know that Cisco did (or does) also use Avocent, but I don't know how close it is to what Dell uses; or if they even still use that on modern systems. So - it will be interesting to know if you can connect on your DRAC (which theoretically might use the same protocol as your Cisco).

Please, let me know if you have some questions or something isn't clear

Kind regards,