To create the floppy image containing bnx2 firmware:


wget http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free/f/firmware-nonfree/firmware-bnx2_0.34_all.deb
dd bs=1024 count=1440 if=/dev/zero of=imagefile.img
mkfs.msdos imagefile.img
mkdir /mnt/floppy
mount -o loop imagefile.img /mnt/floppy
cp firmware-bnx2_0.34_all.deb /mnt/floppy/
umount /mnt/floppy


And, that’s it! Add the floppy via virtual media in DRAC, boot the server, it should install fine this time.

Note that when you connect a floppy image via DRAC, it will briefly disconnect your virtual CD-ROM, and the installation will fail – so make sure you do it before the system boots (or after all data was read from the CD, i.e. when it asks for the image, it is fine – but not before).

“script” command can be used to log user activity. Then, we can send the session as email to several recipients, and remove the log file.

Add this to user’s .bash_profile file, or simply construct something similar:

CURDATE=$(date +%F-%T)
RAND=$RANDOM
 
EMAILS="user@example.com otherrecipient@example.com"
 
script -f -q /tmp/session-$USER-$CURDATE-$RAND.log
for EMAIL in $EMAILS; do
    cat "/tmp/session-$USER-$CURDATE-$RAND.log" | mail -s "SSH session transcript for $USER at $CURDATE" $EMAIL
done
rm -f /tmp/session-$USER-$CURDATE-$RAND.log
exit

Notes:

• don’t assume it to be any security feature: the log file can be easily manipulated or removed by the user, a different shell can be used, etc.,
• sending an email may not be a good idea if you expect lots of output (i.e. cat /dev/urandom).