freeipmi

FREEIPMI(7)                        Overview                        FREEIPMI(7)

NAME
       FreeIPMI - FreeIPMI overview

Introduction
       FreeIPMI  provides  in-band  and out-of-band IPMI software based on the
       IPMI v1.5/2.0 specification.

What is IPMI?
       The IPMI specification defines a set of interfaces for platform manage-
       ment  and is implemented by a number vendors for system management. The
       features of IPMI that most users will be interested in are sensor moni-
       toring,  system  event  monitoring,  power control, and serial-over-LAN
       (SOL). The FreeIPMI tools and libraries  listed  below  should  provide
       users  with the ability to access and utilize these and many other fea-
       tures of IPMI.

Getting Started with IPMI
       IPMI can be used in-band (i.e. running on a machine locally) or out-of-
       band (i.e. connecting remotely).

       Most  FreeIPMI  tools  can  operate in-band by using one of the in-band
       drivers included. These in-band drivers include a userspace KCS  inter-
       face  driver,  a  SSIF  driver  through  the  Linux  SSIF  device (i.e.
       /dev/i2c-0), the OpenIPMI Linux kernel driver  (i.e.  /dev/ipmi0),  the
       Sun/Solaris  BMC  driver (i.e. /dev/bmc), and the Intel DCMI/MEI driver
       (i.e. /dev/dcmi). If your system requires the use of installed drivers,
       those  appropriate  modules  must be installed ahead of time.  However,
       most systems should automatically load these drivers when appropriate.

       Under most scenarios, the FreeIPMI tools should automatically  discover
       which  in-band  interface  to use and the proper settings to use. Users
       may execute the tools on the command line to  begin  using  them.  Some
       motherboards  may  require  you  to  determine  driver type, addresses,
       paths, etc. on your own and pass them as command line  options  to  the
       tools.  You  may use ipmi-locate(8) to help determine this information.
       Other tools such as dmidecode(8) may also provide this information.

       To use IPMI out-of-band with tools such as  ipmipower(8)  or  ipmi-sen-
       sors(8),  the  remote machine's BMC must first be configured for out of
       band communication. Typically, this involves setting a username,  pass-
       word,  IP address, MAC address, and a few other parameters. This can be
       done using the tool ipmi-config(8).  Additional information on  how  to
       configure  with  ipmi-config(8) can be found in the ipmi-config.conf(5)
       manpage. Some vendors may pre-configure their motherboards with default
       values so that ipmi-config(8) can be used remotely to configure the ma-
       chine. However, most of the time, the BMC must  be  configured  in-band
       before  out-of-band  access can be allowed (for example, the correct IP
       address and MAC address must be configured).

       In order to remotely connect to a machine, you typically  must  specify
       the host, username, and password for the tool in order to connect.  De-
       pending on configuration settings, a K_g key, privilege level,  authen-
       tication  type,  cipher  suite  id,  or protocol version may need to be
       specified.

       Some vendors may have not implemented IPMI properly  and  a  workaround
       must  be  specified  into FreeIPMI to ensure the tool can execute prop-
       erly. For example, a fair number of vendors have  populated  their  FRU
       records  with invalid checksums. To properly ignore these set of check-
       sums a skipchecks workaround has been added to ipmi-fru(8).  Please see
       each of the tool manpages to see a list of available workarounds.

       Additional  information,  examples, and general trouble-shooting can be
       found in each of the tool manpages.

General Use
       The primary tools that most users of FreeIPMI will be interested in for
       system management are the following:

       ipmi-sensors

       A tool to read IPMI sensor readings to aid in system monitoring.

       ipmi-sel

       A tool to read and manage IPMI System Event Log (SEL) records to aid in
       system debugging.

       ipmipower

       A tool for remote power control.

       ipmiconsole

       A tool for Serial-over-Lan (SOL) console access.

       Many other tools and libraries are listed below that  cover  additional
       features and areas of IPMI.

       Additional  information,  examples, and general trouble-shooting can be
       found in each of the tool manpages.

Configuration
       In order to avoid typing in a long list  of  command  line  options  to
       specify IPMI communication requirements everytime a command is executed
       (e.g. driver paths, usernames, passwords, etc.), an  alternate  set  of
       default  values can be set for most FreeIPMI tools in the FreeIPMI con-
       figuration file. See freeipmi.conf(5) for more information.

HPC Support
       Much of FreeIPMI was written with HPC support in mind.   Ipmi-config(8)
       comes  with  file  input/output  support  so  that configuration can be
       copied and verified across nodes in a cluster.  Most  tools  (like  ip-
       mipower(8)  and ipmi-sensors(8) ) come with hostrange support so multi-
       ple hosts can be specified on the command line at  the  same  time  and
       IPMI  can  be executed against the hosts in parallel. See tool manpages
       for more information.  Also see the document freeipmi-hostrange.txt for
       detailed  usage  and explanation.  Ipmi-sensors(8) and the libipmimoni-
       toring(3) library support the ability to interpret sensor  readings  as
       well  as  just reporting them. By mapping sensor readings into NOMINAL,
       WARNING, or CRITICAL states, it makes monitoring sensors easier  across
       large numbers of nodes.

Development
       For  information  on the libraries that can be used to program IPMI ap-
       plications with, please see libfreeipmi(3), libipmiconsole(3), libipmi-
       monitoring(3),  and libipmidetect(3).  Or see the document freeipmi-li-
       braries.txt.

Project Tools
       The following tools are distributed and supported by FreeIPMI.

       bmc-info

       A tool to read information about a BMC such as device version  numbers,
       device support, and globally unique IDs (guids).

       bmc-watchdog

       A tool/daemon to manage a BMC Watchdog. This tool is typically used for
       system timeout management and automatic system restarts in the event of
       a system crash.

       ipmi-chassis

       A  tool to manage/monitor a chassis, such as chassis power, identifica-
       tion (i.e. LED control), and status.

       ipmi-fru

       A tool to read field replaceable unit (FRU) information from a  mother-
       board/machine.

       ipmi-sel

       A  tool  to  read  and  manage IPMI System Event Log (SEL) records. SEL
       records store system event information and may be useful for  debugging
       problems.

       ipmi-sensors

       A  tool  to  read IPMI sensor readings and sensor data repository (SDR)
       information.

       ipmipower

       A tool for remote power control.

       ipmiconsole

       A tool for Serial-over-Lan (SOL) console access.

       ipmi-config

       A tool to configure BMC and IPMI information. In can be used to config-
       ured  usernames,  passwords,  networking information, security, Serial-
       over-LAN (SOL), Platform Event Filtering  (PEF),  boot  devices,  power
       restoration  policy,  sensor  thresholds,  sensor events, and many more
       configuration options.

       ipmi-raw

       A tool that provides hex input/output of IPMI commands.

       ipmi-locate

       A tool that can probe for information about the location of a  BMC  de-
       vice, such as device addresses.

       ipmi-pet

       A tool to parse and interpret Platform Event Traps (PET).

       ipmi-dcmi

       A  tool  to perform Data Center Manageability Interface (DCMI) IPMI ex-
       tension commands. Supports extensions for asset  management  and  power
       usage management.

       bmc-device

       A  tool  to  perform  advanced BMC commands, such as resetting the BMC,
       configuring ACPI, configuring SDR/SEL time, manually generating events,
       re-arming sensors, and configuring manufacturer settings.

       ipmiping

       An IPMI ping tool for debugging.

       rmcpping

       A RMCP ping tool for debugging.

       ipmi-oem

       An IPMI tool for OEM specific commands.

       ipmidetect/ipmidetectd

       A tool and daemon for IPMI node detection.

       ipmiseld

       A  daemon that regularly polls the SEL and stores the events to the lo-
       cal syslog.

       Additional information, examples, and general trouble-shooting  can  be
       found in each of the tool manpages.

Project Libraries
       The following libraries are distributed and supported by FreeIPMI.

       libfreeipmi

       A  C  library  that includes KCS, SSIF, and OpenIPMI Linux, and Solaris
       BMC drivers, IPMI 1.5 and IPMI 2.0 LAN communication  interfaces,  IPMI
       packet  building  utilities,  IPMI command utilities, and utilities for
       reading/interpreting/managing IPMI. This library is for programmers in-
       timately  familiar with the IPMI protocol and IPMI specification.  Most
       users may wish to use the libraries listed below.

       libipmiconsole

       A library for Serial-over-Lan (SOL) console access. SOL console  access
       is  abstracted  into a file descriptor interface, so users may read and
       write console data through a file descriptor.

       libipmimonitoring

       A library for sensor and system event log  (SEL)  monitoring  that  ab-
       stracts  away  most  IPMI  details. Interpretation of those sensors and
       events is abstracted into an API with an iterator interface.

       libipmidetect

       A library for IPMI node detection.

REPORTING BUGS
       Report bugs to <freeipmi-users@gnu.org> or <freeipmi-devel@gnu.org>.

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2003-2015 FreeIPMI Core Team.

       FreeIPMI is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it un-
       der  the  terms  of  the GNU General Public License as published by the
       Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at  your
       option) any later version.

SEE ALSO
       libfreeipmi(3),  libipmiconsole(3),  libipmidetect(3),  libipmimonitor-
       ing(3), freeipmi.conf(5), bmc-device(8), bmc-info(8),  bmc-watchdog(8),
       ipmi-chassis(8),  ipmi-config(8),  ipmi-fru(8),  ipmi-locate(8),  ipmi-
       oem(8), ipmi-pet(8), ipmi-raw(8), ipmi-sel(8),  ipmi-sensors(8),  ipmi-
       console(8), ipmidetect(8), ipmiping(8), ipmipower(8), rmcpping(8)

       http://www.gnu.org/software/freeipmi/

FreeIPMI 1.6.4                    2019-08-21                       FREEIPMI(7)