By default we don't block or limit any ports, connections on any port number will work fine. If you can't connect to you server on a special port you should check your servers firewall rules.
IPMI is an industry standard interface to control your server as if you were sitting in front of it. This includes mouse, keyboard, display, power and cdrom drive. You can use it to install an OS from scratch or to regain access to a misbehaving or crashed OS instance. If your server comes with an IPMI webinterface, which all of our server currently do, you need to point your webbrowser to the URL you received when our staff finished installation of your server.
The most important functions can be accessed from the menubar.
Remote Control - Console Redirection: This will start a java applet that'll grant you remote access to mouse/keyboard and the display. You'll also be able to plug an iso from you local harddrive into a virtual CDROM drive.
Remote Control - Power Control: This interface will allow you to perform hard resets of your server, as if you plugged the cords directly.
Virtual Media - CDROM Image: You can use public available SMB (Windows) shares and mount installation images into a virtual CDROM drive. This allows you to install a custom OS or reboot into an rescue system.
You can do all power related functions from within the IPMI webinterface. Select "Remote Control" from the menubar and navigate to "Power Control". There, you're a able to chose from different settings, ranging from completely shutting down your server (as if you plugged the chord) to firing ACPI events (power button pressed) which in most cases leads to a soft powerdown of your os.
Using IPMI webinterface you can install a new / custom OS any time you want. From the webinterface navigate to "Remote Console" - "Console Redirection" and hit the "Launch Console" button to start the java applet. The started applet allows you to use your mouse / keyboard and even your local CDROM drive as if they were connected to the remote system. From the applets menu "Virtual Storage" you can either select your local CDROM drive or an image to use. Restart your server and press the delete key until the BIOS screen is visible. Check if the setting for boot priority are correct to boot from your virtual CDROM. The speed of your internet connection limits the speed of this installation method. If you're connected via dialup you might want to connect the virtual CDROM to an installation image located on a public available SMB server. This will significantly speedup the process.
Sometimes the IPMI interface or parts of it can crash, if you can log in to your servers operating system just fine, you'll be able to reboot the IPMI controller which should fix problems you might have with the webinterface.
You can reboot the IPMI baseboard management controller with ipmicfg. ipmicfg can be downloaded from here: ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/utility/IPMICFG/
Alternatively, you can also use ipmitool which is part of most LINUX distrubutions and FreeBSD ports.
While servers ordered from a single batch will most likely have all the same components, we don't guarantee that. If you need all the same components or special hardware please get in touch with our support prior to your order to see what exact parts will be built into your server.
There is a know incompatibility between VMWare and the 3ware raid controller which hinders you from installing VMWare onto the raid volume. To workaround that you can order a seperate hdd which will not be connected to the raid controller. Installation onto that "off-raid" disk work and VMWare will be able to store files onto the raidvolume just fine. As an alternative you can ask for a usb stick to install VMWare onto. If unsure please ask our support staff prior to your order and consult the VMWare Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) for details.
