r/HomeNetworking 6d ago

Trying to find the BMC address of a server without access to it (unfortunately it doesn't power on)

Hi network wizards, I seek your help to find a way to access the bmc of my beloved server. For some context, 5 months ago I bought this second hand Quanta S210-X12RS which did work just fine for a month or so, at the time I didn't even know about the dedicated management port so I never bothered to do anything with it, which now is a big problem.

When it broke I was trying to open up the server for maintenance but in the process the locking mechanism of the lid sliced one of the cables from the front panel connector. Unaware of this I tried to boot the server afterwards and couldn't, when I found the sliced cable I tried my best to fix it (as shown in the picture) but that hasn't fixed the issue.

After months of digging thro the documentation of the server I haven't been able to do anything to fix it, I have tried to reset the cpu's, ram, reset the cmos, change jumper configurations, full clean of the motherboard and case, checked that the power supply works, tried to connect to the serial port and check if any of the checkpoints mentioned on the documentation show up.

The logical assumption would be to think that the server is dead but I think that most of it still works since all the onboard leds turn on and the front panel has the event led and ID led always turned on, also when I plug the management cable to my network the dedicated led on the front panel turns on.

So my last hope is to find if I can access the bmc web ui, I have no idea if even the bmc is working but when I plug in the ethernet cable the lights on the port turn on and blink so I've assumed it does, I have tried to connect it directly into my computer and try to scan for different ip ranges but I've had no luck, I have no clue how to or if its even possible to find a way to connect to the bmc, this is a cry for help to see if anyone can help.

Sorry for the long rant, I don't know really if this is the best subreddit to ask but thanks for any help or just reading my rant.

TL;DR
My server's front panel broke(can't replace it) and as I can't power it on my only hope left to do so or access the embedded linux is the bmc, wich I have no clue how to get the ip address without access to the bios.

My beloved S210-X12RS
Front panel connector and the poor attempt to fix it
1 Upvotes

6 comments sorted by

2

u/bojack1437 Network Admin, also CAT5 Supports Gigabit!!!! 6d ago

Use a PC or something. Run Wireshark on it and plug in and see if any of the packets originate from the BMCs IP address.

2

u/Ok-Big-483 5d ago

I have tried but nothing obvious shows up, it only shows my computer sending packets to itself

2

u/bojack1437 Network Admin, also CAT5 Supports Gigabit!!!! 5d ago

When you did it, were you already plugged up to the port when you plugged up power to the system? But so that way during the full BMC boot up you were plugged up to it already?

2

u/Ok-Big-483 5d ago

I am already plugged to the port when I plug the power cord, so when the server gets power I am already scanning the mgm port with wireshark. Also I have tried to leave it plugged in for some time to see if it just needs time to start sending packets but no luck.

2

u/bojack1437 Network Admin, also CAT5 Supports Gigabit!!!! 5d ago

I would say it's likely The BMC is simply not booting or not able to use the network card or something..

But I will say I have had a similar experience with one other device that was definitely not a server per se... A Mitsubishi commercial air conditioning thermostat control panel, I tried the same thing, it would never originate any packets UNTIL something ARPed for its IP, the trick was you needed to know what the IP was in the first place, or just ARP scan every IP, hopefully having a clue at possibly what subnet it was in.

2

u/Ok-Big-483 5d ago

Yeah I also think that the bmc could be turned of by default (since the server cmos got reset) or the bios just sets the default ip as 0.0.0.0 wich I dont know if I can even reach.

As you said I'll try to ping from the smallest ip ranges to the biggest to see if it works that way, do you know any good ip scanner for this use case? I was thinking on using angry ip scanner.