Redfish Device Manager on WAC

New Version

Windows Admin Center released a new version couple days back , and the SDK is now generally available in this version. Can we extend this Microsoft remote management platform to do things more than just Windows?

Redfish

This DMTF standard (https://www.dmtf.org/standards/redfish) is supported by many hardware vendor to manage the device remotely, including many IoT devices. it exposes the service interface via a RESTful endpoint.

Redfish on Windows Admin Center

If we can proxy the Redfish REST service via a Window Admin Center gateway plugin, and build a refish device solution extension inside the Windows Admin Center UI, then we can manage not only the Windows, also the physical server that runs the Windows, and even other network devices.

Putting things together

Windows Admin Center uses NUGET package as it's extension package format. So we need to build a nuget package for this redfish device extension.

To use unsigned plugin, you must install WAC with DEV_MODE turned on, introduction is here

msiexec /i WindowsAdminCenter<version>.msi DEV_MODE=1

1. Create a package folder

2. Build the gateway REST call forwarder project, create a plugin folder under the previous package folder and copy the RestForwarder.dll into it.

3. Build the redfish device solution extension, copy the whole public folder under the package folder.

4. Create a nuget spec file in the package folder, below is an example:

<package xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2011/08/nuspec.xsd">
  <metadata>
    <packageTypes>
      <packageType name="WindowsAdminCenterExtension" />
    </packageTypes>  
    <id>redfish</id>
    <version>0.0.1</version>
    <title>Redfish Device Solution (Demo)</title>
    <authors>Hongtao Chen</authors>
    <owners>Hongtao Chen</owners>
    <requireLicenseAcceptance>false</requireLicenseAcceptance>
    <projectUrl>https://github.com/hongtao-chen/redfish-device</projectUrl>
    <description>Redfish device solution demo</description>
    <copyright>MIT</copyright> 
    <tags></tags>
  </metadata>
  <files>
    <file src="public\**\*.*" target="ux" />
    <file src="plugin\**\*.*" target="gateway" />
  </files>
</package>

5. run the command below to create the package

nuget pack redfish.nuspec

Refer to the release for the pre-built package: https://github.com/hongtao-chen/redfish-device/releases

6. Copy the generated package redfish.0.0.1.nupkg into a network share, and add this share as a extension feed in WAC.

7. Install the Redfish Device Solution (Demo) from the WAC extension management UI.

Detail introduction about publishing WAC extension is here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/manage/windows-admin-center/extend/publish-extensions