Does anybody have any clues about how to do kernel debugging on Dell
M-Series blade servers?
I have spent most of a day trying to get a Windows kernel debug utility from
Dell to work. It communicates via an IPMI SOL network connection, and a open
source serial port null modem driver. I can see some activity if I enable
windbg protocol tracing, but it looks like the data stream is badly
corrupted or something. I’ve tried it under both W7-64 (after signing the
null modem drivers) and on a XP mode VM under Win 7. I’d expect the XP mode
VM to act a lot like a real 32-bit XP box, and saw the same behavior, so am
not all that convinced trying another platform flavor will work magic.
Unlike some blades, these don’t have a dongle for a real serial port. They
do have two usb ports, and I own one of the usb debugging adapter gizmos.
Frankly, I’ve never seen a system where USB debugging was stable, although
have seen systems that if you fool with plugging/unplugging the usb cable
you can sometime get it to work for 10 minutes. I looked around on the blade
hardware, and didn’t see anything that looked like a serial 9 pin header
either.
On thought is the iDRAC IPMI firmware needs updating to support kernel
debugging, although the utility docs didn’t say anything about firmware
versions. I know another place I once debugged needed a management
controller firmware fix before it’s IPMI SOL would pass the debugger
packets.
I suppose we could try to reproduce the problem on a system friendlier to
kernel debugging, although eventually knowing how to debug on the Dell
blades seems like it will be important.
Hmmm.
Jan