Introduction - What KVMoIP Can Do for You

You can access the KVM web interface directly from your EasySpeedy Control Center. Just point to the server you wish to manage, and go to the KVM menu.

These are some of the strong features of the KVM over IP:

• Install any operating system (Linux, Windows, BSD, Solaris) onto your Sun server using your local machine's CD/DVD device or an ISO image as the installation media.
• Monitor your boot progress and see if any errors occur.
• Initiate a file system recovery.
• Troubleshoot non-trivial OS configuration issues.
• Determine exception and kernel panic errors.
• Select different kernels.
• Fix incorrect firewall and network settings.
• Disable SSH and use the KVM/IP for remote access.

Screenshots

Lights Out Manager

Integrated/Embedded Lights Out Management (LOM) is Sun Microsystems implementation of the remote management protocol Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) by Intel. It allows for remote control of the server, regardless of its power state. The LOM process is controlled by a dedicated processor, that works independently of the system CPUs. LOM is often referred to as the Service Processor (SP).

LOM is able to control the system power settings and remote KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse). In addition LOM provides monitoring of sensors that measures voltage, temperature, fan speeds, etc.

There are two different types of Lights Out Managers for Sun servers.

The above mentioned two different types of Lights Out Manager include a Service Processor which allows for remote control of the server.

The main difference between the two is that the ILOM systems uses a dedicated network interface, whereas the ELOM uses a network interface shared with the rest of the system. ILOM is used in the later Sun servers.

Inactivity Time-Out

The default inactivity timeout is set to 15 minutes. You can change this setting from the web interface by selecting System Information → Session Time-Out to prevent time-out while working with the web interface and remote console.

Remote Console Redirection

Interacting with your server through KVM is referred to as redirection. By starting redirection from the LOM web interface your browser will launch a Java Web Start application. This application enables you to see and interact with your servers console, from BIOS POST to Graphical User Interfaces.

Storage

Redirected storage is available on both ILOM and ELOM and covers all EasySpeedy Sun servers.

Remote redirection includes a storage functionality, that enables you to mount a CD/DVD drive or CD/DVD ISO image file directly from your workstation to the server, letting you install your operating system of your choice.

Using the Remote Console window, click Storage → Mount Device.

If you are attempting to install an operating system from redirected storage, just mount the storage device and reboot the server. When in BIOS POST, you can press F8 to select boot device.

Problems and Solutions

This section includes the solutions to common problems with the Sun LOM.

Authentication Error

An Authentication Error when trying to open redirection is often caused by either an incompatible Java Runtime or missing libraries in the local client operating system. We advise the use of the Oracle Java Runtime Edition (JRE).

Redirection does not work on Mac OS X, due to the Java version provided by Apple is not 100% compatible with Oracle's Java. Currently there are no solution to this problem. A workaround is to use another operating system or a virtual machine with another operating system and Oracle's Java.

Ubuntu 8.10 and later versions will get the Authentication Error when trying to launch redirection. The problem is caused by the redirection application depending on the libstdc++5 library which has been replaced with libstdc++6.
You will need to install the libstdc++5 package in order to get the required libraries.

This package is however not in the Ubuntu 8.10, 9.04 and 9.10 repositories, on those versions you will have to download and install the libstdc++5 package manually from the 8.04 Hardy package archive see: http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/libstdc++5.

When the package has been downloaded it can be installed by running:

sudo dpkg -i libstdc++5_3.3.6-15ubuntu4_i386.deb

RKVM has already been Launched by x.x.x.x

Remote KVM has already been launched. This could also be a locked session if the redirection application was closed unexpectedly. If inactivity timeout has been enabled, the session will automatically be terminated when the session has timed out. Otherwise, if inactivity timeout has been disabled, you can reset the service processor in order to free the redirection session.

Create Connection Failure

This error can be caused by a firewall blocking the connection. When launching KVM from your Control Center, be sure to keep the pop-up window open while using KVM, otherwise your KVM session will be disconnected after a short period of time. Access is only granted to the specific IP from which you have accessed the Control Center. Make sure you have no local firewall blocking the connection.

Redirection runs on TCP port 8890.
The web interface runs on TCP port 443 (HTTPS).