Users Guide

Conguring servers and server components using Auto Cong

The Auto Cong feature congures and provisions all the components in a server in a single operation. These components include BIOS,

iDRAC, and PERC. Auto Cong automatically imports a Server Conguration Prole (SCP) XML le containing all congurable parameters.

The DHCP server that assigns the IP address also provides the details for accessing the SCP le.

SCP les are created by conguring a gold conguration server. This conguration is then exported to a shared CIFS or NFS network

location that is accessible by the DHCP server and the iDRAC of the server being congured. The SCP le name can be based on the

Service Tag or model number of the target server or can be given a generic name. The DHCP server uses a DHCP server option to specify

the SCP le name (optionally), SCP le location, and the user credentials to access the le location.

When the iDRAC obtains an IP address from the DHCP server that is congured for Auto Cong, iDRAC uses the SCP to congure the

server’s devices. Auto Cong is invoked only after the iDRAC gets its IP address from the DHCP server. If it does not get a response or an

IP address from the DHCP server, then Auto Cong is not invoked.

NOTE:

• You can enable Auto Cong only if DHCPv4 and the Enable IPv4 options are enabled.

• Auto Cong and Auto Discovery features are mutually exclusive. Disable Auto Discovery for Auto Cong to work.

• The Auto Cong is disabled after a server has carried out an Auto Cong operation. For more information on enabling Auto Cong,

see Enabling Auto Cong using RACADM.

If all the Dell PowerEdge servers in the DHCP server pool are of the same model type and number, then a single SCP le (cong.xml) is

required. cong.xml is the default SCP le name.

You can congure individual servers requiring dierent conguration les mapped using individual server Service Tags or server models. In

an environment that has dierent servers with specic requirements, you can use dierent SCP le names to distinguish each server or

server type. For example, if there are two server models to congure—PowerEdge R730s and PowerEdge R530s, use two SCP les,

R730-cong.xml and R530-cong.xml.

NOTE

: On systems with iDRAC version 2.20.20.20 or later, if the le name parameter is not present in DHCP option 60, the

iDRAC server conguration agent automatically generates the conguration lename using the server Service Tag, model

number, or the default lename—cong.xml.

The iDRAC server conguration agent uses the rules in the following sequence to determine which SCP le on the le share to apply for

each iDRAC:

1 The lename specied in DHCP option 60.

2 <ServiceTag>-cong.xml — If a lename is not specied in DHCP option 60, use the system Service Tag to uniquely identify the SCP

le for the system. For example, CDVH7R1-cong.xml

3 <Model number>-cong.xml — If the option 60 lename is not specied and the <Service Tag>-cong.xml le is not found, use the

system model number as the basis for the SCP le name to use. For example, R520-cong.xml.

4 cong.xml — If the option 60 lename, service tag-based, and model number-based les are not available, use the default cong.xml

le.

NOTE

: If none of these les are on the network share, then the server conguration prole import job is marked as failed for le

not found.