Cannot connect to OMSA on ESXi server

Question

I have vSphere ESXi installed on a Dell R710 and am trying to setup and connect to dell OpenManage Server Administrator. I have successfully installed the Dell OpenManager 8.5.0 for esxi650 package, it shows up in the package list, but trying to connect to the server ip at port 1311 (using http or https) is just ending up with a refused connection.

Things I've already tried:

• Starting the CIM Server service, my understanding is that this is service that actually handles the web server.
• Connection to the CLI via SSH and manually modifying the firewall rules to open port 1311.
• Installing OpenManager Server Administrator onto an Ubuntu VM and using that VM to access OMSA.

I'm still not 100% sure I understand OpenManage and how it's supposed to work, but I'm fairly certain that after it's installed on a machine you can access that OMSA on it by opening up a browser and going to "https://[machineaddress]:1311". This worked perfectly fine when I installed OMSA on the Ubuntu VM, but since the Ubuntu VM doesn't actually have any dell hardware it didn't do any good.

I've seen a number of screenshots of people connecting to OpenManage and it giving them the option to specify what server they want to connect to such as this one, but I've never been able to get such a screen. I was hoping to get such a screen when I created the Ubuntu VM and installed OMSA there.

• Is this what I'm missing?
  • If so, is there a way to get to that screen from an Ubuntu OMSA install or does it require a windows server install?
• Alternatively, did I have it correctly to start and I should be able to connect to the ESXi host at port 1311 with a browser to access OMSA?
• Is this possibly an incompatibility between ESXi 6.5 and Dell R710s? ESXi 6.5 apparently isn't supported on R710s. It's gonna suck to have to re-install the VM host, but I'll do what I need to in order to get full functionality.

Of course, any other feedback is also welcome and appreciated. I've spent most of 2 days trying to troubleshoot this and have come up empty.

Solution

I think you don't access OMSA on the ESXi host directly. I think you need to install OMSA on a windows machine and access the OMSA service on the host from there: VMware ESXi 6 - OMSA-Installation.

Edit: To do that on a machine that has both web service and managed node component, ie a physical Dell server with OMSA installed, there is some fine print writing on the login page that is actually a link which says "Manage Remote Node". This link will take you to a page where you can specify IP or server name for the web service to connect to your ESXi server IP. Do not put the port number in this field.

Note that you can install the latest OMSA on any windows computer, and if it is not a Dell server it will only install the web gui part and always take you straight to the manage remote node login page with a field for specifying which IP/servername to connect to.

Edit2: You don't need a windows computer. Today, I installed srvadmin-webserver from the Dell Linux repository on a SLES11 VM. After starting the service I could access https://sles11-ip:1311 remotely. I entered the IP address, username and password of an ESXi host, enabled ignore certificate warnings and OMSA connected to the host. I needed to disable lock-down on the host to make it work, though.

Comments

[Darinth]

I made an attempt with this. Unfortunately, I was unable to install the OMSA on my windows 10 machine and as far as any documentation that I could find goes it's only available for windows server.

[Darinth]

On the Ubuntu VM I was able to access OMSA which was listening on 1311 as expected, but I wasn't able to find the "Manage Remote Node". I've reinstalled ESXi with 6.0 back on the 23rd in case this was simply an issue of compatibility. I'll be attempting to reinstall OMSA on the ESXi host and if needed will follow instructions for setting up OMSA on a linux VM for another attempt at this. Thank you for you response sir.

[Mario Lenz]

@Darinth I didn't see "Manage Remote Node", either. I've seen a login screen like this on the SLES VM and just entered my ESXi host at "Hostname / IP address". Sorry I couldn't help you :-(