Discovering and managing devices
Lenovo XClarity One discovers and manages supported devices through XClarity Management Hub 2.0.
Discovering devices
Automatically discover devices
The management hubs automatically discover supported devices in your environment every five minutes by probing for manageable devices that are in the same IP subnet as the management hub using the SSDP protocol.
ImportantEnsure that SSDP is enabled on the baseboard management controller on each device as well as routers in your environment. For ThinkSystem devices, clickfrom the Lenovo XClarity Controller web interface. Use a DNS service to discover devices
You can use a DNS service to discover ThinkSystem and ThinkEdge servers by manually adding a service record (SRV record) to your domain name server (DNS), and then enabling DNS discovery on the Lenovo XClarity Controller (click from the XClarity Controller web interface, click the DNS and DDNS tab, select Use DNS to discover, and then select the resource manager from the XClarity Manager list).
Ensure that the service record includes the following information for ADS-based DNS.Property Value Domain Your root domain Service _lxca Protocol _tcp Priority 0 Weight 0 Port number 443 Host offering this service Fully-qualified domain name (not the IP address) Manually discover devices
From the XClarity One portal, you can manually discover supported devices in other subnets using specific IPv4 addresses, full-qualified domain names, range of IP addresses, or by probing for manageable devices on specific IP subnets.
To discover devices, click the Add icon (
) from the Unmanaged Devices panel, which you can view by clicking Unmanaged Devices tab in the context menu from the Device management view. Follow the steps in the wizard to identify the devices that you want to discover and the management hub that you want to use for the discovery.
Managing devices
The discovered devices are listed on the Unmanaged Devices panel in the XClarity One portal. To manage discovered devices, select the target devices, click the Add icon (), and follow the steps in the wizard.
If a device is discovered by more than one management hub, the device is listed on the Unmanaged Devices page for each management hub that discovered it, ordered based on the discovery timestamp. When managing a device, you can choose the device that was discovered by the management hub you want to use for management. A device can be managed by XClarity One through only one management hub.
Ensure that the devices that you want to manage are supported by the management hub. You can find a complete list of supported devices, minimum required firmware levels, and limitations from the XClarity Management Hub 2.0 Support for Servers webpage.
Ensure that the latest firmware is installed on each device that you want to manage.
Ensure that all required switch and firewall ports are open before you attempt to manage devices. For information about ports, see Configuring the management hub network.
Creates a management user account named XC1_MGR_{last 8 chars of hub UUID} with an encrypted password on the baseboard management controller for the device. The password is rotated automatically on a regular basis.
After the management process is complete, the management hub uses this XC1_MGR_* user account to connect to the device for management purposes. The credentials that you provided during the management process are no longer used by the management hub.
Adds subscriptions to the device for sending event and metric data to the management hub.
Collects inventory and vital product data.
Collects metric data, including memory predictive failure analysis (MPFA).
Saves sensitive information in the vault.
Regenerates the HTTPS certificate on the server if the current HTTPS certificate is either self-signed or signed by another management hub. The HTTPS certificate is valid for 90 days. The management hub regenerates the HTTPS certificate on the server again 45 days before it expires.
NoteIf the HTTPS certificate is signed by a third party, the management hub sends an event and alert toXClarity One seven days before the expiration date.
After the devices are managed, the management hub polls each managed device every 24 hours to collect and send inventory data to XClarity One.
If XClarity One loses communication with a device (for example, due to power loss or network failure) while collecting inventory during the management process, the management completes successfully; however, some inventory information might be incomplete. Either wait for the device to come online and for XClarity One to poll the device for inventory or manually refresh inventory on the device.
If the IP address of a managed device changes, you must unmanage the device, and then manage it again.
You can use other management software (such as VMware vRealize Operations Manager) in tandem with XClarity One to monitor but not manage devices that XClarity One manages.
Unmanaging devices
You can unmanaged devices in your organization. Click the Managed devices panel title from the Device management view, select the devices that you no longer want to managed, and click the Unmanage icon (
).
The management user account (XC1_MGR_*), and event and metric subscriptions are removed from the device.
Sensitive information in the vault, inventory, vital product data, event forwarders between the device and the management hub, and events and alerts that were raised by the device are discarded on the management hub.
Events there were raised for the device by the management hub are kept on the management hub.
Device considerations
Some ThinkSystem servers support two XCC IP addresses. If two XCC IP addresses are present:
Ensure that each XCC IP address is configured on separate subnets.
The management hub can use only one XCC IP address to manage a server. If the management hub discovers two XCC IP addresses for the same server, only the IP address with the smaller number is listed in the discovered devices table.
The IP address that you use to manage the server becomes the management IP address. If there is a connectivity issue with the IP address, the management hub does not failover to use the second XCC IP address.
Ensure that the management-controller date and time is synchronized with the NTP servers that are used by the management hub. From the XCC user interface, click the Clock icon on the upper right corner to configure NTP settings.
Ensure that the LDAP setting on the XCC is set to LocalOnly before attempting to manage the devices. For more information, see Cannot manage a device.
Ensure that an operating system is installed, and that the server was booted to the OS, mounted bootable media, or efishell at least once so that the management hub can collect inventory for those servers.
Ensure that IPMI over LAN is enabled. IPMI over LAN is disabled by default on these servers and must be manually enabled before the servers can be managed. To enable IPMI over LAN from ThinkSystem System Manager web interface, click . You might need to restart the server to activate the change.