Users Guide

86 Installing Managed System Software on Supported Linux Operating Systems
file. By installing or copying any of the files on the Dell-provided media, you
are agreeing to the terms found in this file. This file is also copied to the root of
the software tree where you choose to install the Dell OpenManage software.
Server Administrator Device Drivers
Server Administrator includes two device drivers for Linux: Systems
Management Base Driver (dcdbas) and BIOS Update Driver (dell_rbu).
Server Administrator uses these drivers to perform its systems management
functions on supported Linux operating systems. Depending on the system,
Server Administrator loads one or both of these drivers if required.
The device drivers for Linux have been released as open source under the
GNU General Public License v2.0. They are available in Linux kernels from
kernel.org starting with kernel 2.6.14.
If the Server Administrator drivers are available with the operating system,
Server Administrator uses those versions of the drivers. If the Server
Administrator drivers are not available with the operating system, Server
Administrator uses its Dynamic Kernel Support (DKS) feature to build the
drivers when needed. For more information about DKS, see the "Dynamic
Kernel Support" section.
The Server Administrator drivers are available with all supported versions of
Linux operating systems except for VMware ESX 3.5. Server Administrator
uses its DKS feature to build the drivers for VMware ESX 3.5.
Dynamic Kernel Support
Server Administrator includes DKS, a feature that Server Administrator uses
to build its device drivers automatically for a running kernel if needed.
If you see the following message during Server Administrator Device Drivers
startup, then Server Administrator has attempted to use its DKS feature,
but was unable to use the feature because certain prerequisites were not met:
Building <driver> using DKS... [FAILED]
where <driver> is dcdbas or dell_rbu
NOTE: Server Administrator logs messages to the /var/log/messages log file.
To use DKS, identify which kernel is running on the managed system, and
check the DKS prerequisites.