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Powering on and off a server

You can power on and off a server from Lenovo XClarity Administrator.

Before you begin

  • For Red Hat® Enterprise Linux (RHEL) v7 and later, restarting the operating system from a graphical mode suspends the server by default. Before you can perform the Restart Normally or Restart Immediately actions from XClarity Administrator, you must manually configure the operating system to change the behavior of the power button to power off. For instructions, see the Red Hat Data Migration and Administration Guide: Changing behavior when pressing the power button in graphical target mode.

  • For SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), powering off the operating system requires you to enter the root password on the SLES session. Before you can perform the Power Off Normally or Power Off Immediately actions from XClarity Administrator, you must manually power off the server using the local SLES interface and select the Remember authentication option when you enter the password, or check your security policy to see if mandatory authentication can be disabled.

  • When enabled, the Wake-on-LAN boot option can interfere with XClarity Administrator operations that power off the server, including firmware updates if there is a Wake-on-LAN client in your network that issues Wake on Magic Packet commands.

  • The power action Restart to System Setup restarts the server and then opens the BIOS/UEFI Startup utility in a remote-control session rather than a normal operating-system boot.

  • The power actions Power Off Normally and Power Off Immediately depend on the configurations of the operating system that is installed on the device and work only if the operating system is configured to support them.

  • You can restart the device with non-maskable interrupt (NMI) by clicking All Actions > Service > Trigger NMI.

Procedure

Complete the following procedure to power on or off a server.

  1. From the XClarity Administrator menu, click Hardware > Servers. The Servers page is displayed with a tabular view of all managed servers (rack servers and compute nodes).
  2. Select the server.
  3. Click All Actions > Power Actions, and then click one of the following power actions:

    • Power On powers on the device.

    • Power Off Normally shuts down the operating system and powers off the device.

    • Power Off Immediately powers off the device.

    • Restart Normally shuts down the operating system and restarts the device.

    • Restart Immediately restarts the device

    • Restart to System Setup restarts the device to BIOS/UEFI (F1) Setup. This is supported for non-ThinkServer servers that are supported without limitations.

    • Restart Management Controller restarts the BMC.

    • Restart immediately and attempt PXE Network Boot restarts the server immediately and boots the server to the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) network. This is supported for Lenovo Flex System, System x, and ThinkSystem servers.

      Note
      PXE-boot related UEFI settings must be configured on the server.