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Disguise User Guide

System Management Controller

System Management Controller (SMC) is an out-of-band management system.

This section includes information on SMC and SMC Mk II. SMC Mk II is a platform change, and maintains all the features of SMC Mk I. Any Mk I or Mk II specific information and troubleshooting is on their respective subpages. Please see the Troubleshooting page for general advice.

SMC Mk I

The system is currently present in the following Disguise machines:

  • VX 1
  • VX 2
  • VX 2+
  • VX 4
  • VX 4+
  • GX 3

SMC Mk II

The system is currently present in the following Disguise machines:

  • EX 2
  • EX 2C
  • EX 3+
  • RX III

SMC Features

The system management controller allows:

1. Constant and up-to-date access to information about the status of the main Disguise server it is contained within such as:

  • Power state
  • VFC cards currently inserted
  • Network adapter details and configuration
  • Server session details

2. Communication with the BMC on the motherboard allows for:

  • Turning on and off machines remotely
  • Monitoring physical metrics such as power draw and temperature

To make life easier, all this information is generally available in three different ways:

  • OLED screen on the front of the servers
  • Webpage, accessible on the host server, and via connection to the server MGMT port
  • Accessible via the same IP as the webpage, with the /api/ extension

Accessing SMC

From an SMC host machine

If operating on the Disguise server - the ‘host’ machine for an SMC - simply access the static 172.31.250.9 IP address into your browser. This applies to all SMC versions and host machine models.

Across a management link/network

The base method for accessing the SMC webpage is:

  1. Connect the MGMT port via ethernet to your network or host
  2. Open your browser, and navigate to the IP address displayed on the front OLED screen. This will open a webpage. If it does not load please refer to the Troubleshooting page.

Alternatively, can connect to an SMC on your network using the smc.local address in place of the IP address. This requires mDNS to be configured on your network. This will load the webpage of the first available SMC, from which (on the SMC page) you can access all the SMCs on your management network by selecting their IPs.

User Account Control

To use the website and some of the API endpoints in v3 and above, a user account must be created. This is to protect against unauthorised access to critical machine functions (like turning off a server mid-show)

  1. Once navigated to the IP address and the login page is visible, click ‘Sign Up’
  2. A four-digit number will appear on the front screen which will need to be put in the ‘Screen Number’ field whilst filling out the form. This number will only appear for 30s, click ‘Resend Verification’ to generate a new number.

Designing into a network infrastructure

Each of the aforementioned Disguise servers have a MGMT ethernet port on the back which is solely for access to the system. This can be built into an existing network infrastructure but care should be taken to isolate this network from all others by using VLANs or maintaining a separate physical network. The reasons for this are two-fold:

  • Security - Since the system has access to lower-level functionality that bypasses the Windows OS on the servers, this shouldn’t be connected to the internet on a permanent basis
  • Reliability - One of the main features of the system is to provide out-of-band management and help configure or change the Disguise server - this cannot happen if the network is down or not configured correctly!

Functionality

Front OLED Screen

The front OLED screen displays data that is organised into pages that are in a table-based format. In v2 and v3, the only available pages are default information and VFC card information. From v4 onwards there will be a selection of different pages that can be displayed which the user can configure at any time from the webpage and REST API.

Default Page

Field Name-Description (Example)

  • Machine-The model of the Disguise server (vx 4).
  • Name - The name of the Disguise server (vx-44150).
  • Role - The role of the machine set by d3 net manager (understudy).
  • MGMT IP - The status of the MGMT IP (assigned)
VFC Page

This page displays information about the currently installed VFCs. If the Disguise server is powered off then this information may be out of date. (This can only be a ‘left’ page).

  • Slot - Which slot the VFC card is installed in left-most looking at the rear is slot 1 (1).
  • Card - The type of VFC card installed in the slot (HDMI).
Network Config Page

This page displays information about the network adapters in the Disguise server.

  • Name - The name of the interface set in Windows (A - d3net 1Gbit).
  • IP - The IPv4 address of the interface (10.0.0.34).
System Temps

This page displays the readings of temperature sensors in the system

  • Name - The IPMI component name (CPU0_TMP)
  • Temp - Temperature sensor reading in degrees Celsius (42 C)
System Status

This page displays the readings of temperature sensors in the system

  • Name - The name of the status (System Power)
  • Status - The value of the status (On)

Web Interface

The web interface is the most user-friendly way of using SMC functionality (to manage your server, view the IPs of other servers on your management network, and see system stats). It is the only place to create an SMC account (see User Account Control), and can be accessed on an SMC host machine or across the management network.

All stats update every 10-15 seconds to ensure that the page is up to date. Information accessible on the webpage also has corresponding API endpoints from which it can be queried.

Status Page

Main (index) page - account creation required to access.

Network Servers

This section displays all the other servers that can be found on the same subnet. Clicking on a row will navigate to that machine’s management page.

Stats Page

Gathers all sensor and important status messages from the IPMI system. This page self-updates every 10-15 seconds. System statistics such as temperature, voltage, and fan speeds are recorded.

Remora Page

Contains details about the Remora system present in the Disguise server such as firmware and hardware version as well the current MGMT IP. This page will tell whether you have an SMC Mk I or Mk II hardware platform. It also provides an ease of access link to the update page, and to fetch the system startup logs.

API

Features and new status information tend to appear here first - Navigate to ip.address/api to access the example page and view what features are available - Can use any http client to send requests to the API (curl, python etc)

Generally any request that involves getting information will not require authentication, anything that modifies the state will require basic authentication tokens (log in on the example API page).

Updating

All SMC systems are updated during Re-images, and OS updates, if the new OS version contains a later SMC OS version. Updating manually is NOT recommended unless recommended by a member of support or development staff.

  1. Navigate to ip.address:9998 in a browser and a SWUpdate landing page should appear.
  2. Contact your support representative for a copy of the latest firmware.
  1. It is NOT recommended to install an older version than currently installed.
  2. Currently installed version can be found by entering ip.address/api/remora into the browser, the current version will be listed as ‘Firmware Version’
  1. Drag and drop the .swu file to the window and the update will start - a progress bar will also appear on the front screen
  2. Once updated the system will restart - this will not affect the operation of the main Disguise server in any way.