Users Guide

Managing Virtual Media

Virtual media allows the managed server to access media devices on the management station or ISO CD/DVD images on a network share

as if they were devices on the managed server.

Using the Virtual Media feature, you can:

• Remotely access media connected to a remote system over the network

• Install applications

• Update drivers

• Install an operating system on the managed system

This is a licensed feature for rack and tower servers. It is available by default for blade servers.

The key features are:

• Virtual Media supports virtual optical drives (CD/DVD), floppy drives (including USB-based drives), and USB flash drives.

• You can attach only one floppy, USB flash drive, image, or key and one optical drive on the management station to a managed system.

Supported floppy drives include a floppy image or one available floppy drive. Supported optical drives include a maximum of one

available optical drive or one ISO image file.

The following figure shows a typical Virtual Media setup.

• Virtual floppy media of iDRAC is not accessible from virtual machines.

• Any connected Virtual Media emulates a physical device on the managed system.

• On Windows-based managed systems, the Virtual Media drives are auto-mounted if they are attached and configured with a drive

letter.

• On Linux-based managed systems with some configurations, the Virtual Media drives are not auto-mounted. To manually mount the

drives, use the mount command.

• All the virtual drive access requests from the managed system are directed to the management station across the network.

• Virtual devices appear as two drives on the managed system without the media being installed in the drives.

• You can share the management station CD/DVD drive (read only), but not a USB media, between two managed systems.

• Virtual media requires a minimum available network bandwidth of 128 Kbps.

• If LOM or NIC failover occurs, then the Virtual Media session may be disconnected.

Figure 4. Virtual Media Setup

Topics:

• Supported Drives and Devices

• Configuring Virtual Media

• Accessing Virtual Media

• Setting Boot Order Through BIOS

• Enabling Boot Once for Virtual Media

Supported Drives and Devices

The following table lists the drives supported through virtual media.

Managing Virtual Media 211