Dell R720 Display problem with Fedora 26 server

kuyaz

Hi,

It seems Fedora 26 is not detecting my DELL R720 display adapter correctly.
Any one has experience on installing F26 in dell server R720?

Any tutorial would be helpful. trying to search but no luck.

Thanks.

kuyaz

tried this but fail : https://serverfault.com/questions/531269/linux-drivers-for-dell-poweredge-server

it seems dell is not really friendly to fedora

@scottalanmiller help

Obsolesce

What do you need the display driver for?

What exactly are you installing that isn't Fedora 26 "Minimal" or "Fedora Server Edition"?

I know if you do install a GUI on a server, Cinnamon is a bad choice. Gnome or XFCE would work better.

kuyaz

I install server edition. it is for homelab to test kvm.
but when i run virt-manager it show error the display is not set.

Obsolesce

Can you run virt-manager from a Linux desktop and connect to your 720 that way?

kuyaz

I have problem with starting the Linux desktop. it seems the display is not set properly.
still figuring how to set the display properly in x11.

Francesco Provino

If I understand well, you are trying to install a full GUI in the hypervisor layer of your server. I’m sorry, but this is just plain wrong.
You should only install a bare minimum Fedora and KVM tools on bare metal, period.
The typical server is just not good with graphical stuff.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that you are experimenting a KVM environment, but don’t treat it as your old bare metal windows 2008 server.
Just to be clear, the right path to install and manage an enterprise server like the r720 does NOT include connecting any display, EVER.

First thing, you should use the management interface iDrac, that provides you vga-like and terminal access to the server on a web interface. You can even mount ISOs directly from your laptop, the time of burning cd/usb is over!
I’ve deployed two r740 this way two months ago, mounting the VMware ISO through wifi (!).

The other thing is, you don’t have to install any management GUI or tools in the bare metal system, ever. All the management should be done from another machine, that has the management stack. VMware (that I don’t love, but is the gold standard regarding some best practices) makes it clear from the beginning; no GUI, useless busybox on the host, everything is done through the management appliance (the vCenter).

Regarding Fedora, I use it for some of my server and the protocol is:

install and upgrade the host OS with KVM and its tools;
harden ssh disabling password login, enable ropt access or anther user that can became root (as of today you MUST use root to start the VM on the host, the user-based qemu connection is flawed in many ways including networking);
install the KVM management layer (usually libvirt) and your gui of choice (virt-manager) into ANOTHER machine and connect those with the host via key-paired, passwordless ssh.

kuyaz

@francesco-provino said in Dell R720 Display problem with Fedora 26 server:

If I understand well, you are trying to install a full GUI in the hypervisor layer of your server. I’m sorry, but this is just plain wrong.
You should only install a bare minimum Fedora and KVM tools on bare metal, period.
The typical server is just not good with graphical stuff.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that you are experimenting a KVM environment, but don’t treat it as your old bare metal windows 2008 server.
Just to be clear, the right path to install and manage an enterprise server like the r720 does NOT include connecting any display, EVER.

First thing, you should use the management interface iDrac, that provides you vga-like and terminal access to the server on a web interface. You can even mount ISOs directly from your laptop, the time of burning cd/usb is over!
I’ve deployed two r740 this way two months ago, mounting the VMware ISO through wifi (!).

The other thing is, you don’t have to install any management GUI or tools in the bare metal system, ever. All the management should be done from another machine, that has the management stack. VMware (that I don’t love, but is the gold standard regarding some best practices) makes it clear from the beginning; no GUI, useless busybox on the host, everything is done through the management appliance (the vCenter).

Regarding Fedora, I use it for some of my server and the protocol is:

install and upgrade the host OS with KVM and its tools;

harden ssh disabling password login, enable ropt access or anther user that can became root (as of today you MUST use root to start the VM on the host, the user-based qemu connection is flawed in many ways including networking);

install the KVM management layer (usually libvirt) and your gui of choice (virt-manager) into ANOTHER machine and connect those with the host via key-paired, passwordless ssh.

ok i think i get the idea. let me practice again thank you.

kuyaz

@francesco-provino i assumae your idrac is enterprise license? mine is express only sad... haha...
official price of the idrac enterprise license is 400$ ++ .... -.-

Francesco Provino

@kuyaz said in Dell R720 Display problem with Fedora 26 server:

@francesco-provino i assumae your idrac is enterprise license? mine is express only sad... haha...
official price of the idrac enterprise license is 400$ ++ .... -.-

That servers have iDrac enterprise, but that’s not the point: you can still use serial redirection, even with the most basic IPMI-compliant machine. I have a super-basic T110 with BMC only and it does IPMI serial redirection pretty well. It’s actually one of my fedora-kvm machine.

kuyaz

@francesco-provino do you know how to bypass the HW RAID in DELL R720?
I want to use SW raid instead with MD.

Thanks.

scottalanmiller

@kuyaz said in Dell R720 Display problem with Fedora 26 server:

@francesco-provino do you know how to bypass the HW RAID in DELL R720?
I want to use SW raid instead with MD.

Thanks.

Several points here....

R720 doesn’t have hardware RAID. There is an add on PERC controller in it. That’s where the RAID lives. The server itself doesn’t have any. So all RAID questions would be about the card.
PERC controllers don’t have a bypass option. You remove the card to bypass. The work around is to make each drive attached to the card it’s own RAID array.
You without question don’t want to do this. There is no scenario where this is a good idea for you. Do not go down this path. MD is not a good idea here.

kuyaz

thanks.Will continue my experiment. I guess I stuck with PERC RAID then.

kuyaz

Setup RAID-1 via PERC for 2 x 4TB HDD
Install Fedora 26 Server from USB Boot
LVM only 20GB out of 4TB for Fedora VM Host (Xen/KVM)
Partition :
1. root (LVM with xfs) 17GB
2. boot (LVM with xfs) 1GB,
3. swap (LVM with swap) 2GB

Please correct if my setup is fine. still learning

Should I partition 20GB and leave the free space for VM guest LVM? or I do 4TB during the install, and put VM host as image file?
CMIIW.

Thanks.

Francesco Provino

@kuyaz said in Dell R720 Display problem with Fedora 26 server:

@francesco-provino do you know how to bypass the HW RAID in DELL R720?
I want to use SW raid instead with MD.

Thanks.

I agree with Scott here. If the PERC is already in place, you can’t beat it with an HDD-only setup. Stay with the PERC.

Francesco Provino

@kuyaz said in Dell R720 Display problem with Fedora 26 server:

Setup RAID-1 via PERC for 2 x 4TB HDD

Install Fedora 26 Server from USB Boot

LVM only 20GB out of 4TB for Fedora VM Host (Xen/KVM)

Partition :

root (LVM with xfs) 17GB

boot (LVM with xfs) 1GB,

swap (LVM with swap) 2GB

Please correct if my setup is fine. still learning

Should I partition 20GB and leave the free space for VM guest LVM? or I do 4TB during the install, and put VM host as image file?
CMIIW.

Thanks.

You have to choose between storing the VM in LVM partition directly or in files. LVM is very solid and a little faster. The file backend is also solid today, and a lot more flexible; I suggest to use XFS as a base filesystem.
PV the whole disk array anyway.

Remeber, both thin LVM and non-preallocated QCOW files will slow the write operations A LOT.

Francesco Provino

@kuyaz said in Dell R720 Display problem with Fedora 26 server:

Setup RAID-1 via PERC for 2 x 4TB HDD

Install Fedora 26 Server from USB Boot

LVM only 20GB out of 4TB for Fedora VM Host (Xen/KVM)

Partition :

root (LVM with xfs) 17GB

boot (LVM with xfs) 1GB,

swap (LVM with swap) 2GB

Please correct if my setup is fine. still learning

Should I partition 20GB and leave the free space for VM guest LVM? or I do 4TB during the install, and put VM host as image file?
CMIIW.

Thanks.

One last thing: raid 1 on standard SATA hdd is gonna be slow. Quite slow.

kuyaz

@francesco-provino

Am i right to say better to just use the whole array on the host and locate it to root partition? and use file image instead for flexibility?

kuyaz

@francesco-provino I guess i have no choice for data sake protection. Do have any other choice? What is the best option for me?

thin lvm / cow is for sharing storage right purpose on limited disk right? by saying slow down A LOT, may i know roughly how many % slower based from you experience?

scottalanmiller

@kuyaz said in Dell R720 Display problem with Fedora 26 server:

thanks.Will continue my experiment. I guess I stuck with PERC RAID then.

What do you mean stuck? It's a good thing. Why are you trying to work around it? There is some logic missing here. You can always remove it, but why would you?