Introduction

This document describes how to connect to the IPMI-compatible controller of a server. The actual device that can speak the IPMI protocol varies in name from vendor to vendor, e.g. HP has iLO, Dell has iDRAC or DRAC, etc. The 'i' typically means "integrated" as opposed to a dedicated card. But the 'i' version may still have a dedicated physical port. The generic name of the controller is the "BMC", the Baseboard Management Controller. IBM uses that moniker.

The best way to configure the IPMI is to get the MAC address of the IPMI Ethernet interface and serve that MAC an IP via DHCP. The IP is typically on one of our "shadow" networks.

Power-related commands:

ipmitool -I lanplus -H hostname_or_ip -U root chassis status
ipmitool -I lanplus -H carmack-ipmi.console -U root chassis power cycle

IPMI abbreviations: * SEL - System Event Log * SDR - Sensor Data Repository

Good summary page: http://www.openfusion.net/linux/ipmi_on_centos

iDRAC6 Setup in BIOS

1. iDRAC6 LAN "On"
2. IPMI Over Lan "On"
3. LAN Parameters
4. NIC Selection "Shared"
5. Host Name String "HOSTNAME"
6. IPv4 Address "x.x.x.x"
7. Subnet Mask "x.x.x.x"
8. LAN User Configuration
9. Account User Name "root"
10. Enter Password "PASSWORD"
11. Confirm Password "PASSWORD"

IPMI on 1850/1950

This document describes how to setup IPMI over LAN on the new generation of Dells such as the latest PowerEdge 1850 servers so administrators can remotely manage the servers. The IPMI setup does NOT replace the serial console but serves a different purpose.

The new generation of Dell PowerEdge 1850 and Dell 1950 comes with an embedded IPMI controller on the motherboard that provides control and information about the hardware aspects of the server. It is unclear how much of the IPMI 1.5 and 2.0 feature set that the controller actually supports but the most important functions do seem to work. This embedded controller does not require the add-on RAC card, any java clients, or any server side software to work.

To setup the IPMI controller, follow the following steps:

1. In netdb, create an entry on the shadow net that is routed through the same switch and router as the server itself. For instance, if the server is on network 171.67.16, then create an entry for 172.27.16. The hostname is arbitrary but I would recommend something like

   <server-name>-ipmi.sunet
   

   There should be a Make and Model of Dell PowerEdge IPMI already in netdb.

2. Reboot the server. Near the end of the normal bootup process before the server attempts to boot off disk, something like this will flash on the screen:

   IPMI Server Management Configuration Utility 1.1
   Press <Ctrl-E> for BMC Setup...
   

   At that point, hit Control-E to drop into the IPMI setup utility.

3. The setup utility is menu drive and fairly simple to navigate through. Below are the steps to configure a new 1850.

   1. Scoll down to "NIC Selection" and make sure it is set to "Shared".

   2. Scroll down to "User Configuration" (Dell 1850) or "LAN User Configuration" (Dell 1950) and hit enter. Make sure that "Administrator Account" is enabled. The "Admin Account" should be left at "root". Enter and confirm a password. Make sure the password is standard across your servers and that your team knows it. Hit escape to go back to the main menu.

   3. Scroll up to "IPMI LAN Channel" (Dell 1850) or "LAN Parameters" (Dell 1950) and hit enter. Enter in the address that netdb assigned to this interface in step 1, the netmask and the gateway address (e.g. 255.255.255.0 and 172.27.20.1). Hit escape to go back to the main menu.

   4. Scroll up to "IPM Over LAN" and turn it on.

   5. Optional: Scroll down to "Host Name String" and put in the name assigned to this controller in netdb.

   6. At this point, hit escape, save your changes and exit.

4. The server is now all setup to be remotely accessed via a compatible IPMI client. For Debian, simply run apt-get install ipmitool, for Red Hat, run yum install OpenIPMI.

   Below are the steps using ipmitool to reboot the server remotely if a kernel panic has occurred.

5. Run

   ipmitool -I lanplus -H <ip or hostname> -U root -A MD5 -a shell
   

   which will put ipmitool in shell mode so multiple commands can be issued. The utility will prompt you for the controller password and hopefully use MD5 to encrypt the password on the stream.

At this point, you can run any IPMI commands. Type help to get a list of some of the commands. The most interesting commands are:

 chassis status (to obtain a status check of the server)
 chassis power on (to turn the server on)
 chassis power off (to turn the server off)
 chassis power reset (to reset the server)
 chassis power cycle (to reset the server)
 sensor (get information on fans and heat)

NOTE: If you are having trouble, try turning off your iptables firewall

That's it. System administrators should now be able to remotely reboot the server as long as main power is supplied to the server without any add-on hardware.

Setting Up IPMI Without Rebooting

As described at http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2004-December/018310.html, run within an 'ipmitool' from inside the host OS (after the two IPMI kernel modules: ipmi_si and ipmi_devintf are loaded):

user set name 2 root
user set password 2 xxxxxxx
user enable 2

lan set 1 ipsrc static
lan set 1 ipaddr XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
lan set 1 netmask XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
lan set 1 defgw ipaddr XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
lan set 1 access on

To test locally, run:

ipmitool -I lanplus -U root -A MD5 -a shell -H <hostname-ipmi.console.sunet>

modifying which physical interface is used for IPMI traffic

On a Dell R610, I was able to change between "dedicated"/"shared" using the 'racadm' Dell tool.

On an HP DL165 G7 with LO100i, I used the 'lo100cfg' HP tool to change that.