• Investigation story
• Switch between JDK versions
• Final solution

I've spent half a day to access Dell IPKVM iDRAC6 under Ubuntu 16.04 Linux. After successfull login all attempts to launch Virtual Console failed with "Connection failed". Google told that this is well-known behavior under JDK 1.8 and I should use 1.7 or even 1.6

apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk
apt install policycoreutils
setsebool -P allow_execmod on

But there is a problem here, older versions are already removed from current package repository. Ok

add-apt-repository ppa:openjdk-r/ppa
apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk
update-java-alternatives -s java-1.7.0-openjdk-amd64

But there is no IcedTea 1.7 here. Ok

apt-get install icedtea-7-plugin

Unfortunately, it is missing from this repository too :( So I had to find .deb and install it manually. Along with dependence to icedtea-netx 1.5

dpkg -i icedtea-netx_1.5-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb
dpkg -i icedtea-7-plugin_1.5-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb
update-java-alternatives -s java-1.7.0-openjdk-amd64

Now I can successfully switch to JDK 1.7 as system default. According to manual we should download avctKVM.jar from IPKVM and run it in some specific way. It is located at https://$drachost:443/software/avctKVM.jar along with other modules. You can inspect downloaded .jnlp for more details. It is generated when you launch Virtual Console.

ipkvm.sh

#!/bin/bash

echo -n 'Host: '
read drachost

echo -n 'Username: '
read dracuser

echo -n 'Password: '
read -s dracpwd
echo

/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.7.0-openjdk-amd64/bin/java -verbose -cp avctKVM.jar \
 -Djava.library.path=./lib \
 com.avocent.idrac.kvm.Main ip=$drachost kmport=5900 vport=5900 \
 user=$dracuser passwd=$dracpwd apcp=1 version=2 vmprivilege=true \
 "helpurl=https://$drachost:443/help/contents.html"

Looks like it works. Console is available, keyboard works fine. But Virtual Media doesn't. I got "Failed to launch VirtualMedia" without any details. I thought that problem is related to avctVMLinux64.jar mentioned in .jnlp. But neither putting in near avctKVM.jar nor including it in classpath helps. Google tells that we should try JDK 1.7 32bit or JDK 1.6 (both 32 and 64 bit). Here I had even more tricky manual installation but without success. Virtual Media didn't work. Finally I've even found Windows system with IE11 and JDK 1.8. Same problem as under Linux - "Connection failed", however I found references that it sould work. Change of Java security level to minimal also didn't help.

When looking for references to avctVMLinux64.jar and avctVMLinux32.jar I've found still one manual. It proposed to run .jnlp with javaws. idrac_console.sh

javaws veiwer.jnlp(a-lot-of-unique-cheracters-comes-here)

Looks like I was lucky and my first attempt to run one of downloaded .jnlp was fuccessfull. But I couldn't reproduce it. I've checked all versions again :) But finally appeared that it must use JDK 1.7 64bit and fresh .jnlp genereated after logout/login/Launch console. And it works. Virtual Media module works too.

PS. Also I've found that it is not possible to keep different versions of IdetTea on the same system because they require different verions of icedtea-netx, but versions of this module cannot exist in one system simultaneously. When newer JDK/IcedTea 1.8 is (re)installed, old IcedTea 1.7 is automatically removed. update-java-alternatives doesn't solve this issue.

# switch to JDK/IcedTea 7
dpkg -i icedtea-netx_1.5-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb
dpkg -i icedtea-7-plugin_1.5-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb
update-java-alternatives -s java-1.7.0-openjdk-amd64

# switch to JDK/IcedTea 8
dpkg -r icedtea-7-plugin
dpkg -r icedtea-netx
apt-get -f install
apt-get install icedtea-netx
apt-get install icedtea-8-plugin
update-java-alternatives -s java-1.8.0-openjdk-amd64

add-apt-repository ppa:openjdk-r/ppa
apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk
dpkg -i icedtea-netx_1.5-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb
dpkg -i icedtea-7-plugin_1.5-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb
apt install policycoreutils
update-java-alternatives -s java-1.7.0-openjdk-amd64
setsebool -P allow_execmod on

# re-login on IPKVM Web, download fresh viewer.jnlp (Launch Virtual Console)

javaws viewer.jnlp.....

See also:

• idrac_console.sh

FB