I will try to collect useful protocol information about Dell's (actually ""<>) RAC protocol

My main goal is to use Dell RAC from Linux, without all troubles described in my blog post

Proprietary ports

Supported SSL Cipher Suites

DRAC 5 supports SSL version 3 and TLS version 1.0. The following are ciphers supported on DRAC 5:

• SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5
• SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA
• SSL_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA
• SSL_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_MD5
• TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
• TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA

IPMI RMCP+ Encryption

DRAC 5 IPMI over LAN and SOL use RMCP+ for Authentication and Key exchange. For details on the RMCP+ protocol, see the IPMI 2.0 specification.

DRAC 5 IPMI supports the following encryption algorithms:

• AES-CBC-128 (128-bit AES with CBC)
• RC4-128 (128-bit RC4)

Console Redirection Security

Authentication and Encryption

DRAC 5 can continuously redirect the managed system's video, keyboard and mouse (KVM) to the management station. It is a very powerful feature, is very easy to use, and does not require any software installation on the managed system. A user can access this feature to remotely manage the system as if they were sitting in front of the system. A security authentication and encryption protocol has been implemented in console redirection to prevent a hostile, rogue client from breaking into the console redirect path without authenticating though the web server. 128-bit SSL encryption secures the keyboard keystrokes during the remote console redirection and therefore does not allow unauthorized "snooping" of the network traffic. The following sequence of security protocol operations is performed during the establishment of a console redirection session:

1. A user logs into the main web GUI then clicks the "Open Consoles" tab.

1. The Web GUI sends a pre-authentication request to the DRAC 5 web server via the HTTPS channel (SSL encrypted).

1. The DRAC 5 web server returns a set of secret data (including an encryption key) via the SSL channel. The console redirection authentication key (32 bytes long) is dynamically generated to prevent replay attack.

1. The Console redirection client sends a login command with an authentication key to a console redirection server keyboard/mouse port for authentication via SSL channel.

1. If authentication is successful, a console redirection session and two console redirection pipes (one for keyboard/mouse and one for video) are established. The keyboard/mouse pipe is always SSL encrypted. The video pipe encryption is optional. (Users can choose to encrypt or not to encrypt the video pipe before they start their console redirection session).

Video redirection

root@klin:~# ssldump -r /tmp/rac_t1.pcap 
New TCP connection #1: klin.local(52028) <-> 10.60.0.102(5900)
1 1  0.0148 (0.0148)  C>S  Handshake
      ClientHello
        Version 3.0 
        cipher suites
        SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5
        SSL_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA
        SSL_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA
        compression methods
                  NULL
1 2  0.0165 (0.0016)  S>C  Handshake
      ServerHello
        Version 3.0 
        session_id[0]=

        cipherSuite         SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5
        compressionMethod                   NULL