EXADATA -- Connecting to the nodes using the Serial Management Port (RJ45-DB9-RS232-USB) + Connecting to the Cisco switch via CAT-5

Under certain circumstances, we connect to Exadata machines using a serial connection  or using a cat5 cable connected to the Cisco switch.
These kinds of connections may be needed while re-imaging Exadata or while installing an Exadata.
Basically, we may need to have these kinds of connections when we don't have a proper network configuration on the Exadata machines that we are dealing with.

In this blog post, I 'm going to explain both connecting our laptop to Exadata nodes using a serial connection and connecting our laptop to Exadata nodes using a TCP-IP connection directly through the Cisco-Switch (Admin network).

 RJ45-DB9-RS232-USB cable

Let's start with Serial connection;

This kind of a serial connection is actually for connecting to ILOMs via serial connection.
We actually connect to the nodes using the Serial Management Port through a RJ-45 cable, but that cable is converted to USB for the client side.(as seen in the picture above)

First, we download and install a usb to serial port converter driver to our client. (most of the case, we use windows clients) .  This driver can be found on Internet, for ex: CDM20814_Setup.exe

Then we open up our Device Manager and check our  COM X connection port. Yes, we need to find that X :) --> for instance : COM3, COM2

Then we connect the serial port side of our cable to the serial port of the node that we want to connect. (compute node, cisco switch etc)
Ofcourse we connect the usb side of our cable to our client machine.

Once the cabling is done, we use Putty to connect to the device using the COM Port.

That is; in putty, we choose the COM port/Serial connection and click Open..  (baud 9600,  8N1: eight data bits, no parity, one stop bit, Disable software flow control (XON/XOFF))

After clicking Open, we press the Enter key 3-4 times and we find ourselves in ILOM console of the machine.

Lastly, we reach the SSL console of the machine and that's it :)

ermanarslanexadata02-ilom login: root

Password: 

Oracle(R) Integrated Lights Out Manager

Version 3.1.2.10 r74387

Copyright (c) 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

 -> 

 -> start /SP/console

Are you sure you want to start /SP/console (y/n)? y

 Serial console started.  To stop, type ESC (

Let's take a look at connecting our laptop to the the Cisco switch using a cat-5 cable;

Ofcourse this is easier than having a  serial connection.

We connect our client to a free port of the Cisco switch using a cat-5 cable.

Then we configure our network adaptor by specifying an IP address manually. (we use an IP address assigned to one of our PDUS.. We also specify correct Subnet and Gateway for our network adaptor..) -- note that this info can be derived from the OEDA output.

Once configured, we are done.. We may see an exclamation mark (!) on our network adaptor , but this is Ok.. We may now connect to our db nodes, to our cell nodes and even to our infiniband switches using SSH :)

I'm done :) I hope, this will help you ..