Dell Support Live Image - shawfdong/hyades GitHub Wiki

Dell Support Live Image is a bootable live image with a collection of Dell tools for Dell support needs. Dell Support Live Image Version 2.2 is based on CentOS 7.0, and gives users access to the following Dell tools:

  • Asset Tag Utility
  • OMSA: OpenManage Server Administrator (OMSA) allows system administrators to manage individual servers from an integrated, web-browser-based graphical-user-interface (GUI) and from a command-line interface (CLI) through the operating system. Note for the web GUI, the username is root and the password is dell.
  • DSET: Dell System E-support Tool (DSET) provides the ability to collect hardware, storage and operating system information from a Dell PowerEdge server.
  • 32-bit Diagnostics
  • SUU: Server Update Utility is an application for identifying and applying updates to the Dell PowerEdge system or to view the updates available for any system supported by SUU.
  • iDRAC Evaluation License Utility
Dell Support Live Image Version 2.2 can be downloaded from http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER02725522M/1/SLI22_A00.iso.

On OS X, we can examine the ISO image: 

$ open SLI22_A00.iso

$ df
Filesystem    512-blocks       Used Available Capacity   iused    ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk2s3       40480        952     39528     3%       117     4941    2%   /Volumes/Sli22_A00 

$ diskutil list disk2
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *1.7 GB     disk2
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         32.8 KB    disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS                         20.7 MB    disk2s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Sli22_A00               82.9 MB    disk2s3

Strangely, the ISO image contains an Apple Partition Map, which is the partition scheme used on PowerPC Macintosh computers. This is different from, e.g., the hybrid[1] Kali Linux ISO image: 

$ diskutil list disk3
/dev/disk3
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *3.3 GB     disk3
   1:                       0x17                         3.2 GB     disk3s1
   2:                 DOS_FAT_12 NO NAME                 82.5 MB    disk3s2
which has a MBR partition. The Kali ISO is a hybrid image, and can be burned directly to a USB drive using dd[2].

Creating a Bootable USB drive on Windows

Dell Support Live Image Version 2.2 User's Guide recommends using Fedora LiveUSB Creator to create a bootable support live USB drive on Windows[3]. That seems to work.

On OS X, one can see the partition on the USB drive: 

$ diskutil list /dev/disk4
/dev/disk4
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *8.0 GB     disk4
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32 LIVE                    8.0 GB     disk4s1

Creating a Bootable USB drive on OS X

There is a way to create the bootable USB drive on OS X too[4].

Convert the ISO to a UDIF read/write disk image: 

$ hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o SLI22_A00 SLI22_A00.iso
which will generate UDRW image SLI22_A00.dmg.

Prepare the USB drive (note that partitioning the USB drive is not necessary): 

$ diskutil list
$ diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk2 1 "Free Space" "unused" "100%"
Started partitioning on disk2
Unmounting disk
Creating the partition map
Waiting for the disks to reappear
Finished partitioning on disk2
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *8.0 GB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1

Write the UDRW image to the USB drive: 

$ sudo dd if=SLI22_A00.dmg of=/dev/disk2 bs=1m

$ diskutil list /dev/disk2
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *8.0 GB     disk2
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         32.8 KB    disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS                         20.7 MB    disk2s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Sli22_A00               82.9 MB    disk2s3

$ diskutil eject /dev/disk2

Surprisingly, although the USB drive contains an Apple Partition Map, it is bootable on Dell PowerEdge servers!

References

  1. ^ isoIsohybrid
  2. ^ Making a Kali Bootable USB Drive
  3. ^ Dell Support Live Image Version 2.2 User's Guide
  4. ^ Create bootable USB stick from ISO in Mac OS X
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