First I've got to say I'm a Linux / Ubuntu novice, so go gentle on me
as I'm on day 3.
I've managed to get Ubuntu server Ubuntu 8.04 LTS installed and
running on the Poweredge 2850 I bought off ebay. The box will go in a
rack at my office but I want to be able to work on it and power on and
off from home and I gather that (maybe) IPMI over LAN might be the way
to do this, or maybe its something to do with BMC or something?
I want to be able to administer/manage from a client PC at home
running XP. I will be configuring the office router to port forward
port 80 and 443 to the Ubuntu server running Apache2, and I'm puzzled
about how the remote management works (unless it comes on a different
port forwarded to a different internal IP)
Thanks for any help
Best Answer
To clarify, to remotely administer the most basic level of hardware (hard reboots, BIOS settings / update) you want a "Lights Out Management" (LOM) card, which is an embedded server with its own processor on a card in the server, or a KVM-switch type solution.
For ordinary everyday Operating System level (i.e. Linux) administration, using remote text access such as provided via
ssh. Yes, it will be annoying to learn all the commands and flags in the beginning, but it is quicker, and less painful than working daily via a remote graphical administration in my experience. I've been able to support remote systems in exotic locations using ssh for routine administration on high-latency (1000ms) 64kps or less network connections.