How to set or reset a Dell Service Tag

Kinda bummed about having to do this on my own, but it just seemed easier. I have a Dell PowerEdge R710 that DID NOT handle either a iDrac or BIOS version update very well. The BIOS would not show a version number and the iDRAC6 would just hang. Couldn't reset the iDRAC and could barely get the box running again (had to pull power and do a dance and hope for it to boot). Most of the time the iDRAC boot option would get auto selected... long story. None of the 2 days of work requested by Dell tech's helped... they had to replace both the motherboard and iDRAC6 card. (on a side note, I may post on the large number of ways to flash firmware or BIOS's that Dell has provided to Linux users)

Sadly, the "asset" program the tech had with him seemed to only set the "Asset Tag" and not the Service Tag. The BIOS was the only thing that would show the Service Tag correctly. None of the normal ways to get the ST would produce results:

dmidecode -s system-serial-number
racadm getsvctag
getSystemId

I did find a DOS asset.exe executable, but who wants to boot a server system to DOS?! There was the lonesysadmin.net peeps with a plausible boot .iso... nah, there's gotta be a better way without having to resort to that... More google'n and bingo the hint I needed.

Turns out that the OMSA install I had could do what I wanted. I just didn't know it. At least for CentOS 6.0 and with smbios-utils-python-2.2.26-6.1.el6.x86_64 on a Dell R710 with BIOS 3.0.0, I can run:

smbios-sys-info --service-tag --set=123456

and this will set/reset my newly replaced motherboard to have the Service Tag I need! Please note that this Service Tag also persists over reboots unlike some older posts seem to have issues with.

As always, YMMV