Hi,
we recently bought a new T430 with iDRAC8 Enterprise Management Card.
Managing the server via remote console (web browser access on iDRAC IP) works perfectly. However, I would like to control the server on the command line, so I am fiddling with SSH access to the iDRAC card.
SSH access offers a wealth of commands to manage the server, on of them being the RACADM command, which accepts SERVERACTION subcommand to control server power.
RACADM SERVERACTION POWERUP starts up my server and does work, while RACADM SERVERACTION POWEROFF would just cut the power, which I obviously don't want to use for normal shutdown.
What I do want is RACADM SERVERACTION GRACESHUTDOWN, which performs a "graceful shutdown", i.e. politely asks the OS to shutdown in a normal way.
This does work if I am logged in via remote console or remote desktop. It doesn't, if the server was left untouched since powerup.
In the release notes of iDRAC7 v1.50.50, I found a list of limitations, one of which is:
> Performing a graceful shutdown from the iDRAC7 Web interface or
> updating the BIOS or the firmware using the iDRAC7 update method:
> For Windows OS in screen lock state:
> Graceful shutdown does not happen because, Windows operating system has a policy setting to
> disable shutdown while in locked state. Make sure that this policy is enabled.
> If it is not enabled, then it proceeds with ungraceful shutdown. This is equivalent to losing
> power. After the server resets, multiple options are displayed to start Windows. Select Start
> Windows Normally and then check the System Event Log file. You can see that an event is
> logged in for the ungraceful shutdown.
I don't understand this completely... is there a group policy I should set to enable graceful shutdown even when windows is in "locked state" (equivalent to "no user logged in"???)?
Thank you for any useful answers!
Thomas