We are connecting via Intel AMT and the integrated VNC (or Ultra VNC) to machines. Everything works great, but on machines which have NOT US Keyboard Layout as the local Layout on the local PC, the spcial characters are completly wrong on the host machine.
All our old servers have supermicro boards and we used IPMI to make out-of-band managment. Mostly we used it for shutdown/restart and sometimes change some settings via the sol/kvm console. As it happens one of our new servers has an Intel board with vPro/AMT. We enabled it and were really disappointed from the webgui it offers, which is very limited compared to our usual IMPI soliution.
Our main problem is now: How can we enable the +#?=)(&/%$ยง' kvm vnc. AMT supports it from version 6, we have 7. We activated in the bios settings kvm, SOL, and IDER. But there seems no vnc server to run (an easy telnet servername 5900
shows this). Some digging on the really spare sites on the all-knowing internet seem to indicate that you have to enable it in addition to the BIOS setting with a Managability Tool from Intel. (Not sure why it is this way, and there is not a BIOS option for it) - but if it is so, we dont know how to do it, as we have a Unix (Linux + Solaris) only environment and dont can use it (its a windows tool).
It seems there are driver for Linux from Intel that you can make those seetings not via network but direct on the host - but guess what? We want that console to install a system on it, so we have no system at all on the machine itself.
Anybody knows of any solution for this?We already installed on our other machines the amttools but give just a SOL terminal (which shows NOT the BIOS messages) and mirrors the functionality of the very limited webgui.
Update: As solution we used now a private laptop with windows. We installed this SOAP messages generating batch scripts from Intel on it and activated it once. So we have now working vnc - but I would gladly hear another solution, as (we already checked it) when the AMT is (partially) reseted the setting is also gone.
1 Answer
We have need of this as well, and found what to do. Basically, you need to use the wsmancli (Cross-Vendor Web-Services Management API) package to assist you. I've included a template script to get you going. There are other utilities to operate with WS Management, search around if interested.
Install on Ubuntu:
After Installed:
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I ordered some new PCs with Intel vPro enabled on them, but now that I have them I'm not sure how to use it.
I found some old websites about using Altiris and Microsoft SMS but those are expensive and really meant for large organizations. Does anyone know of a free or cheap way to use vPro?
John Gardeniers4 Answers
Intel has a list of free tools at the below link:
Another option is Spiceworks, a free network monitoring/help desk/PC inventory tool. An Intel AMT plugin available to allow remote access, device sharing, and power on/off from within Spiceworks.
From Wikipedia:
VNC-based KVM Remote Control
In vPro 6.0 PCs with embedded Intel graphics, Intel AMT embeds a proprietary VNC Server, so you can connect out-of-band using dedicated VNC-compatible Viewer technology, and have full KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) capability throughout the power cycle - including uninterrupted control of the desktop when an operating system loads. Clients such as VNC Viewer Plus from RealVNC also >provide additional functionality that might make it easier to perform (and watch) certain Intel AMT operations, such as powering >the computer off and on, configuring the BIOS, and mounting a remote image (IDER).
Have you tried using a VNC Viewer to connect to these machines?
CypherCypher2018 Update:
UltraVNC now redirects to RealVNC. The RealVNC product you need is the Viewer Plus - the standard (and free client) does not do KVM over IP.
There is no information on TightVNC's site regarding capacity to access the VNC server running inside a vPro chip.
Other options are:
- MeshCommander (open source). Allows for controlling the Intel AMT and LMS, and also for KVM over IP, so you can watch the boot screen and set RAID or BIOS options (like RealVNC does)
- Dameware (paid)
- Intel's own free Management Command Tool (MDTK), which has been replaced by MeshCommander, but still might be required to use TLS with MeshCommander. Note that MeshCommander has released several fixes on TLS and MDTK might no longer be needed.
- As far as I understood this option, you can setup an intermediate Ubuntu box to use as a KVM over IP device into the machine you actually want to control (clumsy)
Every Intel AMT enabled PC has a web server running on port 16992 and/or 16993 (https).
Just point your web browser to:
or