lekien9537 / OOB

This is for the Out-Of-Band Management method. Basic knowledge with the Bash script to get the server hardware information base on SNMP protocol.

OOB

In the systems management, mostly we know about the In-Band Management method but how about the Out-of-Band Management?

Let's find out.

What is OOB?

Out-Of-Band (OOB) Management (sometimes called lights-out management - LOM) is a method of remotely controlling and managing critical IT assets and network equipment using a secure connection through a secondary interface that is physically separate from the primary network connection.

You know FTP protocol, right? It uses out-of-band control: the Control connection and the Data connection separation:

How does OOB works?

- Independent of the production (main) network.

- OOB use the management interfaces (or serial ports) for managing devices.

- Protocols: Telnet, SSH, HTTP(S), SNMP, Redfish ....

- Severs support: Dell iDRAC, HPE ILO, Supermicro BMC ....

Why do we need OOB?

- Allows remote reboot, shutdown, powering on the system.

- Hardware sensor monitoring (fan speed, power voltages,...).

- Can access local media like a DVD drive, or disk images, from the remote machine.

- Can be used to adjust BIOS settings that may not be accessible after the operating system has already booted.

- Settings for hardware RAID or RAM timings can also be adjusted as the management card needs no hard drives or main memory to operate.

Compare with In-Band Management

In-Band Management	Out-Of-Band Management
Data and control commands travel across the same network route	Control data on a separate connection from main data
No additional manually configure the network settings	Manually configure the network settings
Only works after the operating system has been booted	Independent of the operation system
Low cost, independent of the vendors	High cost, dependent of the vendors

My Bash scripts using the SNMP protocol to get the server hardware information.

Script to get server hardware information base on SNMP protocol.

Usage: main.sh -cn [community_name] -ip [ip_address] , choose these options:
  - h/--help:            Display this help message
  - cn/--community_name: Community name 
  - c/--cpu_info:        To get server CPU info
  - d/--disk_info:       To get server DISK info
  - ip/--ip_address:     Remote server ip address (for local, use localhost/127.0.0.1)
  - r/--ram_info:        To get server RAM info
  - n/--nic_info:        To get server NIC info
  - o/--overall_info:    To get base info, this for DEFAULT
  - p/--port:            Server's SNMP port 
  
Examples:
  ./main.sh  -cn ABCD123!@# -ip 10.10.10.10 -c -r

Look into it to know more. Here is result: