Dell iDRAC

Dealing with old Dell iDRACs is always fun. Here are some notes on how to get it working.

Troubleshooting

Network connection has dropped

iDRAC Network connection has been dropped

Install icedtea-web or the official JDK from oracle. Because the iDRAC uses RC4 for SSL/TLS, you will get an error "The viewer has terminated. Reason: The network connection has dropped." if you try to connect. To work around this, you will need to edit /usr/java/jdk1.8.0_202-amd64/jre/lib/security/java.security (change the java version as required) and edit jdk.tls.disabledAlgorithms to not include RC4. Save the file and try launching the java web start applet again.

644 #jdk.tls.disabledAlgorithms=SSLv3, RC4, DES, MD5withRSA, DH keySize < 1024, \
645 #    EC keySize < 224, 3DES_EDE_CBC, anon, NULL
646 jdk.tls.disabledAlgorithms=SSLv3, DES, MD5withRSA, DH keySize < 1024, \
647     EC keySize < 224, 3DES_EDE_CBC, anon, NULL

Java application blocked

Java application blocked

On an even older Dell iDRAC (version 2.2), when trying to launch the java web start application, I got an "Application Blocked by Java Security".

To fix this, you need to open the Java security control panel by running /usr/java/jdk1.8.0_202-amd64/jre/bin/ControlPanel, go to the "Security" tab, and then click 'Edit Site List...'. Add your iDRAC's address into the exception list. For example, http://ipmi-nn1:80 or https://ipmi-nn1:443.