Dell C6100 BMC / IPMI Mac address all zeros after update? 00:00:00:00:00:00 — Script fix solution

Photo by JohnSeb

Some of you may have noticed the Dell C6100 on ebay for a pretty cheap price. 4 servers in a single 2u chassis for as little as $800. Great deal right?

I had a lot of trouble getting the IPMI / BMC firmware updated on these in the first place. After getting it upgraded, the mac address read all zeroes on the IPMI. Obviously this is a big problem as multiple servers will each have the same mac address. I was tearing my hair out trying to solve this problem, but did come up with a solution.

Step 1:

Install ipmitool

Step 2:

copy the following script to a text file (I saved the file to macgen.py) and then chmod 755 the file, and then run it. Please bear in mind this will only work with Dell C6100 servers!

#! /usr/bin/python
#
# macgen.py script generates a MAC address for Dell C6100 BMC controllers
# it runs a command that reprograms the IPMI / BMC mac address to a randomized mac address
# this is useful since the flash upgrade process for the BMC on the Dell C6100 will
# typically "zero out" the mac address, which causes serious problems and conflicts on the network
#
print " "
print "Created by and Copyright 2013 Input Output Flood, LLC"
print "www.IOFLOOD.com -- We Love Servers"
print " "
print "This script may be freely distributed"
print "so long as this copyright notice is not edited"
#
print " "
print "This script is provided with no warranty. Use at your own risk."
#
# This script has been tested as working on a Dell DCS C6100 using IPMI / BMC firmware versions 1.25 and 1.30.
# We have not tested any other versions, though we do expect it would work with other versions.
#
# This script requires "ipmitool" be installed. In centos you may install ipmitool with the following commands:
#
# yum -y install OpenIPMI OpenIPMI-devel OpenIPMI-libs OpenIPMI-tools kernel-devel gcc gcc-c++ make
#
# chkconfig ipmi on
# service ipmi start
#
# wget "http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/ipmitool/ipmitool/1.8.11/ipmitool-1.8.11.tar.gz?r=http%3A%2F%2Fsourceforge.net%2Fprojects%2Fipmitool%2Ffiles%2Fipmitool%2F1.8.9%2F&ts=1311648838&use_mirror=cdnetworks-us-2"
# tar -zxf ipmitool-1.8.11.tar.gz
# cd ipmitool-1.8.11
# ./configure && make && make install
#
# This script was tested with the BMC controller NIC set to "dedicated".
# The first command output will work for that setting.
# The second command output is expected to work when the NIC is set to "shared", but this has not been tested.
#
import random

# the first half of the mac address will always be 00:16:3e, because that's worked for us. If you want something random or something different, edit the next 6 lines:

mac1= "%1x" % random.randint(0x0, 0x0)
mac2= "%1x" % random.randint(0x0, 0x0)
mac3= "%1x" % random.randint(0x1, 0x1)
mac4= "%1x" % random.randint(0x6, 0x6)
mac5= "%1x" % random.randint(0x3, 0x3)
mac6= "%1x" % random.randint(0xe, 0xe)

# the second half of the mac address is random

mac7= "%1x" % random.randint(0x0, 0xf)
mac8= "%1x" % random.randint(0x0, 0xf)
mac9= "%1x" % random.randint(0x0, 0xf)
mac10= "%1x" % random.randint(0x0, 0xf)
mac11= "%1x" % random.randint(0x0, 0xf)
mac12= "%1x" % random.randint(0x0, 0xf)

print " "
print "Updating Dell C6100 BMC Mac address to: " + mac1 + mac2 + ':' + mac3 + mac4 + ':' + mac5 + mac6 + ':' + mac7 + mac8 + ":" + mac9 + mac10 + ":" + mac11 + mac12

mac1 = hex(ord(mac1))
mac2 = hex(ord(mac2))
mac3 = hex(ord(mac3))
mac4 = hex(ord(mac4))
mac5 = hex(ord(mac5))
mac6 = hex(ord(mac6))
mac7 = hex(ord(mac7))
mac8 = hex(ord(mac8))
mac9 = hex(ord(mac9))
mac10 = hex(ord(mac10))
mac11 = hex(ord(mac11))
mac12 = hex(ord(mac12))

executioner1 = 'ipmitool raw 0x2e 0x21 ' + mac1 + ' ' + mac2 + ' 0x3a ' + mac3 + ' ' + mac4 + ' 0x3a ' + mac5 + ' ' + mac6 + ' 0x3a ' + mac7 + ' ' + mac8 + ' 0x3a ' + mac9 + ' ' + mac10 + ' 0x3a ' + mac11 + ' ' + mac12 + ' 0x00'
executioner2 = 'ipmitool raw 0x2e 0x23 ' + mac1 + ' ' + mac2 + ' 0x3a ' + mac3 + ' ' + mac4 + ' 0x3a ' + mac5 + ' ' + mac6 + ' 0x3a ' + mac7 + ' ' + mac8 + ' 0x3a ' + mac9 + ' ' + mac10 + ' 0x3a ' + mac11 + ' ' + mac12 + ' 0x00'

import subprocess
import shlex
executioner1 = shlex.split(executioner1)
executioner2 = shlex.split(executioner2)
subprocess.call(executioner1)
subprocess.call(executioner2)

print "Update Complete. Restarting IPMI module"

reset = shlex.split("ipmitool mc reset cold")
subprocess.call(reset)
print " "
print "Wait 30 seconds, then run 'ipmitool lan print 1' to verify mac address"

After running this, you should be in good shape. The script will prompt you with instructions for what to do to verify it worked.

If you enjoy it, feel free to use it / spread it around.

If you have any questions about the above solution, or want any information about ioflood.com dedicated servers, feel free to email us at sales [at] ioflood.com