Connect to DRAC II from Windows 7

If you’re still managing an old Dell server that has a DRAC II card, you may have some trouble connecting to it from Windows 7. However it does work, from both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 running Internet Explorer 8. Here are the basic instructions.

1. Download the Server Agents file DOMNWA00.EXE (about 163MB). This shows the current version 4.5 on the download page, but it actually downloads Dell OpenManage 2.2. Extract the file to disk.

2. The files you need are in the drac24 folder. On the Windows machine from which you want to do remote control, run setup.exe in the folders drac24\Management Station only and drac24\Client only. (ClientMS doesn’t install DRAC AddressBook Server and DRAC CardObject Server.)

Note On Windows 7 64-bit, manually overwrite install locations to be under C:\Program Files (x86). 

Note Also on Windows 7 64-bit, the services are not installed for some reason (or did I use a different install package this time?). Run these sc commands to install the services. The spacing and equal signs are tricky in the sc command, so copy each command to run it (do check that the paths match the install paths):

sc create RacAddrBook binPath= "C:\Program Files (x86)\DRAC\MStation\RacAddrs.exe" DisplayName= "DRAC AddressBook Server" start= auto

sc create RacObject binPath= "C:\Program Files (x86)\DRAC\MStation\MStation.exe" DisplayName= "DRAC CardObject Server" start= auto

3. Before before trying to connect, start the RacAddrBook service if it is not already started.

4. The final advice is that you will need to run the DRAC II Client Web Console as an Administrator in order be able to connect. I blogged about this last year: Windows 7 UAC Blocks DRAC II Web Console.