Configuring IPMI/iLO Settings for Power Management with Cisco UCS B Series blades fails with “…took too long to respond.”

I find the following problem to be one of the most common questions I get asked when someone is trying to configure VMware IPMI/iLO Settings for Power Management with Cisco UCS B Series blade servers so while the reason for this error would appear to be trivial, I figure I’d write a post about this in case anyone tries to search for the error message and wants a quick answer.

Problem

You make an attempt to try and configure the VMware IPMI/iLO Settings for Power Management in vCenter 4.1 with Cisco UCS B Series blade servers but get the following error:

Connection Error

The request failed because the remote server ‘someNameOrIP” took too long to respond. (The command has timed out as the remote server is taking too long to respond.)

Error Stack

Call “HostSystem.UpdateIpmi” for object “someESXiServerName” on vCenter Server “yourvCenterName” failed.

Solution

Whenever I get asked why this error message gets presented, my usual answer is that this can if:

1. You typed in your credentials wrong.
2. You do not have an IPMI profile setup in UCS Manager and assigned to your service profile.

As per this link: https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-8582

… which will lead you to the following document for configuring Cisco UCS with vSphere DPM:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadBody/8582-102-3-18898/Integrating%20Cisco%20UCS%20with%20vSphere%20Distributed%20Power%20Management.pdf

… what you need to do is verify the following settings:

1. User name
2. Password
3. BMC IP Address
4. BMC MAC Address

It will not work if you don’t have the IPMI Access Profiles from within UCS configured:

So proceed with configuring this via the document provided above.  I will also include some screenshots below to show what the process looks like:

Once you have these settings configure appropriately for the service profile and verified you have the correct username and password, you should be able to get past the error message mentioned above.