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Cisco IMC Supervisor Rack-Mount Servers Management Guide, Release 2.0

Bias-Free Language

The documentation set for this product strives to use bias-free language. For the purposes of this documentation set, bias-free is defined as language that does not imply discrimination based on age, disability, gender, racial identity, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and intersectionality. Exceptions may be present in the documentation due to language that is hardcoded in the user interfaces of the product software, language used based on RFP documentation, or language that is used by a referenced third-party product. Learn more about how Cisco is using Inclusive Language.

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Book Title

Cisco IMC Supervisor Rack-Mount Servers Management Guide, Release 2.0

Chapter Title

Overview

Results

Updated:
August 29, 2016

Chapter: Overview

Overview

This chapter contains the following topics:

About Cisco IMC Supervisor

Cisco IMC Supervisor is a management system that allows you to manage rack-mount servers on a large scale. It allows you to create groups of rack-mount servers for monitoring and inventory purposes.

You can use Cisco IMC Supervisor to perform the following tasks:

  • Logically grouping servers and viewing summary per group

  • Collecting inventory for the managed servers

  • Monitoring servers and groups

  • Managing firmware including firmware download, upgrade, and activation

  • Provide Northbound REST APIs to discover, monitor and manage servers and perform firmware upgrades programmatically.

  • Managing standalone server actions including power control, LED control, log collection, KVM launch, and CIMC UI launch.

  • Restricting access using Role Based Access Control (RBAC)

  • Configuring email alerts

  • Configuring server properties using policies and profiles

  • Defining schedules to defer tasks such as firmware updates or server discovery

  • Diagnosing server hardware issues using UCS Server Configuration Utility

  • Cisco Smart Call Home provides proactive diagnostics, alerts, and remediation recommendations

About Licenses

Cisco IMC Supervisor requires you to have the following valid licenses:

  • A Cisco IMC Supervisor base license.

  • A Cisco IMC Supervisor bulk endpoint enablement license that you install after the Cisco IMC Supervisor base license.

  • A Cisco IMC Supervisor advanced license. You can add, edit, and delete policies and profiles with the base license but you cannot apply a policy or a profile to a server without the advanced license. An error occurs if this license is unavailable when you apply a policy.

  • A default embedded Cisco IMC Supervisor evaluation license. The evaluation license is generated automatically when the end user installs Cisco IMC Supervisor and all the services start for the first time. It is applicable for 50 servers.

Important:

If you are using an evaluation license for Cisco IMC Supervisor, note that when this license expires (90 days from the date the license is generated), retrieving inventory and system health information, such as faults, will not work. You will not be able to refresh system data, or even add new accounts. At that point, you must install a perpetual license to use all features of Cisco IMC Supervisor.

The process for obtaining and installing the licenses is the same. For obtaining a license, perform the following procedures:

  1. Before you install Cisco IMC Supervisor, generate the Cisco IMC Supervisor license key and claim a certificate (Product Access Key).

  2. Register the Product Access Key (PAK) on the Cisco software license site, as described in Fulfilling the Product Access Key.

  3. After you install Cisco IMC Supervisor, update the license as described in Updating the License.

  4. After the license has been validated, you can start to use Cisco IMC Supervisor.

For various other licensing tasks you can perform, see Licensing Tasks.

Fulfilling the Product Access Key

Perform this procedure to register the Product Access Key (PAK) on the Cisco software license site.

Before You Begin

You need the PAK number.

Procedure
    Step 1   Navigate to the Cisco Software License website.
    Step 2   If you are directed to the Product License Registration page, you can take the training or click Continue to Product License Registration.
    Step 3   On the Product License Registration page, click Get New Licenses from a PAK or Token.
    Step 4   In the Enter a Single PAK or TOKEN to Fulfill field, enter the PAK number.
    Step 5   Click Fulfill Single PAK/TOKEN.
    Step 6   Complete the additional fields in License Information to register your PAK:

    Field

    Description

    Organization Name

    The organization name.

    Site Contact Name

    The site contact name.

    Street Address

    The street address of the organization.

    City/Town

    The city or town.

    State/Province

    The state or province.

    Zip/Postal Code

    The zip code or postal code.

    Country

    The country name.

    Step 7   Click Issue Key.

    The features for your license appear, and an email with the Digital License Agreement and a zipped license file is sent to the email address you provided.

    Common Terms in the Cisco IMC Supervisor User Interface

    Rack Groups

    A Rack Group is a logical grouping of physical rack-mount servers. A Rack Group represents a single converged infrastructure stack of C-Series and/or E-Series servers. You may add, modify, and delete Rack Groups as required.

    Note

    When you login for the first time, Cisco IMC Supervisor provides a rack group titled Default Group. You can add rack accounts to this rack group, or you can create new rack groups and add rack accounts to them. But, you cannot delete this default rack group account.

    Rack Account

    Rack Account is a standalone rack-mount server added to Cisco IMC Supervisor. You can add multiple rack-mount servers in Cisco IMC Supervisor. After you add a rack-mount server to Cisco IMC Supervisor as an account, Cisco IMC Supervisor provides you with complete visibility into the rack-mount server configuration. In addition, you can use Cisco IMC Supervisor to monitor and manage the C-Series and E-Series rack-mount servers. Rack accounts should be added to the rack groups either to the default group or to a group you have created.

    Policies

    Policies are a primary mechanism for defining configuration of various attributes on Cisco IMC. Policies help ensure consistency and repeatability of configurations across servers. Defining and using a comprehensive set of policies enables greater consistency, control, predictability, and automation as similar configurations are applied across many servers.

    Profiles

    Multiple policies combined together form a hardware profile. You can apply configuration details of a rack hardware profile for example, to multiple rack-mount servers. You can associate this hardware profile to specific rack-mount servers. This helps ensure consistency and repeatability of configurations across servers. Defining and using a profile enables greater consistency, control, predictability, and automation as similar configurations are applied across many servers.

    Common User Interface Options

    The following table describes the options that are available on all pages of the application user interface. These options perform the same task on every page.

    Icon

    Label

    Description





    Refresh

    Refreshes the reported data on the page.





    Favorite

    Adds a page to the Favorites menu.

    You can use this option to view frequently accessed pages more quickly.





    Add

    Brings up the Add dialog box, from which you can add a new resource.





    Edit

    Brings up the Edit dialog box, from which you can edit a resource.





    Customize Table

    Brings up the Customize Report Table dialog box, in which you choose what columns you want to include on the screen.





    Export Report

    Brings up the Export Report dialog box, from which you download a report to your system.

    You can generate a report in one of the following formats:

    • PDF

    • CSV

    • XLS





    Expand

    Expands all the folders that are displayed on the page.





    Collapse

    Collapses all the folders that are displayed on the page.





    Add Advanced Filter

    Adds additional filtering parameters on the page.





    Search Field

    Accepts a keyword to filter for specific records on the page.

    Setting Up a Secure Connection to the Cisco IMC Supervisor User Interface

    Perform this procedure to set up a secure connection to the system.

    Procedure
      Step 1   Update the value for the redirectPort parameter to 443 in the server.xml file.

      This file is located in the /opt/infra/web_cloudmgr/apache-tomcat/conf/ directory. 

      <Connector port="80" protocol="HTTP/1.1"
connectionTimeout="20000"
redirectPort="443" 
maxHttpHeaderSize="65536"/>
      Step 2   Uncomment the following lines in the web.xml file: 
      <security-constraint>
<web-resource-collection>
<web-resource-name>HTTPSOnly</web-resource-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</web-resource-collection>
<user-data-constraint>
<transport-guarantee>CONFIDENTIAL</transport-guarantee>
</user-data-constraint>
</security-constraint>

      You can add these lines anywhere in the file.

      Step 3   Launch the user interface and login to the system.

      Setting up Non-Secure Connection to the Cisco IMC Supervisor User Interface

      By default, the Cisco IMC Supervisor user interface launches in the secure mode. If you want to bypass the secure mode, and launch the user interface in a non-secure mode (HTTP), you must follow this procedure.

      Procedure
        Step 1   Log in as root.
        Step 2   Make the following changes in the /opt/infra/web_cloudmgr/apache-tomcat/conf/server.xml file:
        1. Comment out the existing port 8080 Connector tag 
          <!--
<Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1"
redirectPort="443" maxHttpHeaderSize="65536"
URIEncoding = "UTF-8"/>
-->
        2. Add the following as a new port 8080 Connector tag: 
          <Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1"
maxThreads="150" minSpareThreads="4"
connectionTimeout="20000"
URIEncoding = "UTF-8" />
        Step 3   Comment the <security-constraint> tag in the /opt/infra/web_cloudmgr/apache-tomcat/webapps/app/WEB-INF/web.xml file. 
        <!-- 
<security-constraint>
<web-resource-collection>
<web-resource-name>HTTPSOnly</web-resource-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</web-resource-collection>
<user-data-constraint>
<transport-guarantee>CONFIDENTIAL</transport-guarantee>
</user-data-constraint>
</security-constraint>
-->
        Step 4   Restart the services.
        Step 5   Launch the user interface and log in to the system.

        You can now log into the system in the non-secure mode using the following URL format:

        http://<IP-Address>:8080 or http://<IP-Address>

        You can launch the user interface in both, secure and non-secure modes.

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