Cisco UCS C220 C-series serial numbers

Note: this post originally did not include the correct cURL commands.  Blogger does not allow < or > characters in posts without HTML encoding, so my hasty copy and paste of  the raw script excluded many details.  Sorry for the confusion. 

After a Cisco UCS C220 server was rebuilt piece by piece by TAC and then ultimately declared DOA, I was requested by our Smartnet manager to retrieve all the serial numbers for all the minor components. Because it was a stand alone rack mount server, I did not have UCSM available to pull the information.  I was also disappointed to find CIMC did not provide the serial numbers for all the components.

Outside of disassembling the server, it seems then that the UCS XML API interface was my answer.

By the time I managed to find all the class IDs of all the components and get a script working, we found the serial numbers on packing labels, a much simpler solution.  For those interested in some real UCS XML API examples, below is a snippet of a script I was putting together.

I was using Strawberry Perl from http://strawberryperl.com/ on MS Win7 for scripting and curl from http://curl.haxx.se/dlwiz/ for the communication with the UCS XML interface.

#! perl

use 5.010;
use strict;
use warnings;

my $ucsip = 'PUT YOUR UCS SERVER IP ADDRESS HERE';
my $ucsuser = 'PUT YOUR UCS ADMIN USERNAME HERE';
my $ucspassword = 'PUT YOUR UCS ADMIN PASSOWRD HERE';
my $cookie;

# print info re: script
sub print_header {
print "####################\n";
print "#\n";
print "# Get serial numbers from the UCS server\n";
print "# and it's components\n";
print "#\n";
print "# Ray Maslanka 11/29/2013\n";
print "#\n";
print "####################\n";
}

# log into UCS server, get and return cookie
sub curl_ucs_login_and_get_cookie {
    my $cookie;
print "Logging into UCS via web...\n";
# use curl to return login info and redirect stderr to stdout via 2>&1
my $curl = `curl -d "<aaaLogin inName='$ucsuser' inPassword='$ucspassword'></aaaLogin>" https://$ucsip/nuova -k 2>&1`;
print "Finding UCS cookie...\n";
if ($curl =~ /(outCookie=")(.{47})/){ # look for stuff starting with outCookie=" and then any 47 characters
print "Found cookie: $2\n"; # throw confirmation on screen
$cookie = $2; # put the regex in a variable to return
} else {
print "Can't find a cookie\n"; # something's bad, add some error checking
}
return $cookie;
}

# get UCS chassis serial number
sub curl_ucs_chassis_serial {
my ($cookie) = @_;
my $serial;
print "Getting chassis sumary from server...\n";
my $curl = `curl -d "<configResolveClass cookie='$cookie' inHierarchical='false' classId='computeRackUnit'/>" https://$ucsip/nuova -k 2>&1`; # use curl to return login info and redirect stderr to stdout via 2>&1
print "Finding chassis serial number...\n";
if ($curl =~ /(serial=")(.+?)(")/){ # look for stuff starting with serial=" 
print "Found chassis serial: $2\n"; # throw confirmation on screen
$serial = $2; # put the regex in a variable to return
} else {
print "Can't find a chassis serial number\n"; # something's bad, add some error checking
}
return $serial;
}

# get power supply serial numbers
sub curl_ucs_ps_serial {
my ($cookie) = @_;
print "Getting power supply details from server...\n";
my $curl = `curl -d "<configResolveClass cookie='$cookie' inHierarchical='false' classId='equipmentPsu'/>" https://$ucsip/nuova -k 2>&1`; # use curl to return login info and redirect stderr to stdout via 2>&1
local $/ = undef;
print "Retrieving power supply serial...\n";
while ($curl =~ /(serial=")(.+?)(")/g){
print "Found power supply serial: $2\n";
}
}

# get HDD serial numbers
sub curl_ucs_hdd_serial {
my ($cookie) = @_;
print "Getting HDD details from server...\n";
my $curl = `curl -d "<configResolveClass cookie='$cookie' inHierarchical='false' classId='storageLocalDisk'/>" https://$ucsip/nuova -k 2>&1`; # use curl to return login info and redirect stderr to stdout via 2>&1
local $/ = undef;
print $curl;
print "Retrieving HDD serial...\n";
while ($curl =~ /(driveserialnumber=")(.+?)(")/g){
print "Found HDD serial: $2\n";
}
}

# log out of UCS server
sub curl_ucs_logout {
my ($cookie) = @_;
print "Logging out of UCS via web...\n";
# use curl to return login info and redirect stderr to stdout via 2>&1
my $curl = `curl -d "<aaaLogout inCookie='$cookie'/>" https://$ucsip/nuova -k 2>&1`;
print "Logged out.\n";
}

# run the program
print_header();
$cookie = curl_ucs_login_and_get_cookie ();
curl_ucs_chassis_serial ($cookie);
curl_ucs_ps_serial ($cookie);
curl_ucs_hdd_serial ($cookie);
curl_ucs_logout ($cookie);


I hope this serves as a starting point for someone.  It at least demonstrates basic techniques for logging in, retrieving and using the UCS 'cookie', retrieving component information, finding interesting things via regex in perl, and logging off.

If you happen to finish this so all the serial numbers are retrieved, please link to a location where others may benefit from it.