Apple introduced what was termed as Lights Out Management when they released their new Intel Based Servers. This is essentially nothing new when Intel based Server boards are concerned. I suppose this is just a different term to what is known as IPMI.

Functionality

LOM allows one to be able to both monitor hardware status of the server, but it also allows one to be able to power on and power off the hardware remotely. This means if the server is down, one would be able to cold power on the hardware. This functionality is very similar to the Remote Service Adapter in IBM.

Configurations

The configuration of LOM sits within Server Monitor provided by the Server Admin tools that is installed with either the XServe or the Admin tools package within the Server DVD. All one has to do is to launch the Server Monitor application, and select the Server menu item, followed by the Configure Local Machine item. Once this is done, a dialog with IP address settings is presented. Configure these with the desired IP addresses and the user name and password to access the LOM. Once that is done, Appleand exit.

Do note that there is no extra Ethernet interface that is attached to the server. This means that perhaps a virtual Ethernet port is created that uses the existing 2 Ethernet port connected on-board the server.

Quirks

There are several irregularities that i have observed when using LOM.

1. A local machine cannot monitor itself using the defined LOM IP address. But 127.0.0.1 will work. But perhaps this is related to the point below.
2. The IP address defined within the LOM setting would have to be setup such as a monitoring machine will be able to access its network parameters
   • This means that if you have a machine that is meant to do management, a separate network is required on top of the typical IP network.
   • This is in exception to the fact IF you setup all the IP addresses reachable within the access network to be in the same network range as the actual Ethernet ports. For example, if your actual Ethernet configuration is setup as 10.0.0.1/255.255.255.0 and your LOM network ip is set to be 10.0.0.101/255.255.255.0, This is fine (but not a suggested configuration due to security).

The Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) is a software mangement and weakly monitoring tool that can be used to control multiple desktops or servers at a time. It can call up a VNC like terminal, or be used to dispatch files, UNIX commands or even lock down other machines. It can also be used to shutdown other machines or wake them up.

Controlling ARD from the command line

Once in a while, ARD can run into errors such as the VNC not being able to display properly or somehow, unable to start or stop. In such cases, especially in HPC, the only method of acess, being SSH, would be the way to restart or re-configure some startup parameters of ARD.

Luckily, Apple Remote Desktop includes the “kickstart” command line utility. It allows you to install, uninstall, activate, configure, and restart components of Apple Remote Desktop without restarting the computer. You can configure all the features found in Apple Remote Desktop preferences.

The kickstart utility is located here:

/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart

You need an administrator account to use the kickstart utility. To begin using the kickstart utility, use the sudo command, such as:

$ sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart \
      -restart -agent

Note: All commands presented in this document should be typed as one line of text. It’s OK if the text wraps as you enter it, just be sure not to enter hard carriage returns.

Following are some examples of other things you could do.

• Activate Remote Desktop Sharing, en! able access privileges for all users, restart ARD Agent:

$ sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart \
      -activate -configure \
      -access -on -restart -agent

• Activate Remote Desktop Sharing, enable access privileges for the users “admin”, grant full privileges for the users “admin”, restart ARD Agent and Menu extra:

$ sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart \
      -activate -configure \
      -access -on -users admin -privs -all -restart -agent -menu

Note: The -users flag should refererence the shortname of a user of the system.

• Activate Remote Desktop Sharing, disable access privileges for all users:

$ sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart \
      -activate -configure \
      -access -off

• If you just want to stop the ARD Agent process:

$ sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/Remote! Management/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart \
      -agent -stop

• If you want to deactivate it:

$ sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart \
      -deactivate -configure \
      -access -off

Tip: For more information about using the kickstart command, add the -help flag. For example:

$ sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -help

Hostname refuses to change after setup

Sometimes, i have very interesting circumstances whereby during a setup of a Mac cluster, i find that the hostname of the management node needs to be changed. However, after changing the computer name and the sharing name, the hostname command continues to provide the old hostname which is then wrong.

The below methods will then do the trick.

• To change only the host name

  changeip - current-ip-address current-ip-address current-host-name new-host-name
  /System/Library/ServerSetup/serversetup -setComputername new-host-name
  /System/Library/ServerSetup/serversetup -setBonjourname new-host-name
  reboot

• To change only the IP address

  changeip - current-ip-address new-ip-address
  /System/Library/ServerSetup/serversetup -setInfo en0 new-ip-address new-netmask new-router 
  reboot

• Both

  changeip - current-ip-address new-ip-address current-host-name new-host-name
  /System/Library/ServerSetup/serversetup -setComputername new-host-name
  /System/Library/ServerSetup/serversetup -setBonjourname new-host-name
  /System/Library/ServerSetup/serversetup -setInfo en0 new-ip-address new-netmask new-router
  reboot