IPMI Management Utilities

ipmiutil - Project Overview	(formerly known as panicsel)
An easy-to-use IPMI server management utility

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(Linux rpm/deb, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD)

IPMIUTIL performs a series of common IPMI server management functions to allow administrators to perform management functions without a learning curve. It can gather FRU inventory data, SEL firmware log, sensors, watchdog, power control, health, monitoring, and has an SOL console. It can write sensor thresholds, FRU asset tags, and supports a full IPMI configuration save/restore. Ease-of-use examples with IPMIUTIL:

IPMIUTIL can detect and use various existing IPMI drivers, or run in driverless mode, which is useful for boot media or test environments.
IPMIUTIL supports Windows natively, with MS or Intel drivers.
Configuring the IPMI LAN requires just a single command
The decoding of IPMI events includes a severity.
Any IPMI events not recognized at least return the data, rather than just Unknown.
SEL management is automated via checksel.
Watchdog management is automated via ipmiutil_wdt.
A soft-reboot can be easily performed instead of a hard reboot by using ipmiutil_asy.

The IPMI Specification provides a standard way to do both simple and complex server management functions. Everything from remote reset/power-off to sending an SNMP alert from a sensor event even if the OS is down. Being able to perform these tasks in Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) firmware allows OS-independent management. What many administrators and integrators need, however, is a set of utilities and/or sample code to perform these functions within their enterprise management subsystem without a learning curve.

The IPMI Management Utilities project provides a series of utilities that perform common IPMI server management functions, such as viewing the firmware log (ipmiutil sel), or configuring the BMC LAN & PEF features (ipmiutil lan). The utilities are designed for end-users, so that they should not require intimate knowledge of how to build IPMI commands. Each of the utilities detects or reasonably assigns default values so that a working configuration can be easily obtained. More detailed options allow changes to these default values. These utilities can be used separately, or merged with a larger server management subsystem. The source license is BSD, which allows for this code to be re-used in open-source or proprietary software. These utilities support any IPMI 1.0, 1.5 or IPMI 2.0 compliant platform.

The ipmiutil software compiles under Linux (Makefile), Windows (buildwin.cmd), Solaris (Makefile), and FreeBSD (Makefile).
See descriptions of each utility function below.

ipmiutil - a meta-command to invoke each of the functions below
ipmiutil alarms (ialarms) - show and set the front panel alarms (LEDs and Relays)
ipmiutil config (iconfig) - list/save/restore the BMC configuration parameters
ipmiutil cmd (icmd) - send specific IPMI commands to the BMC, mainly for testing and debug purposes.
ipmiutil discover (idiscover) - discover the available IPMI LAN nodes on a subnet.
ipmiutil events (ievents) - a standalone utility to decode IPMI events and PET data
ipmiutil firewall (ifirewall) - discover the available IPMI LAN nodes on a subnet.
ipmiutil fru (ifru) - show decoded FRU board/product inventory data, write FRU asset tag
ifruset - show decoded FRU inventory data, set FRU product area
ipmiutil fwum (ifwum) - OEM firmware update manager extensions
ipmiutil getevt (igetevent) - receive any IPMI events and display them
ipmiutil health (ihealth) - check and report the basic health of the IPMI BMC
ipmiutil hpm (ihpm) - HPM firmware update manager extensions
ipmiutil lan (ilan) - show and configure the LAN port and Platform Event Filter table to generate BMC LAN alerts via firmware events.
ipmiutil picmg (ipicmg) - discover the available IPMI LAN nodes on a subnet.
ipmiutil reset (ireset) - cause the BMC to hard reset or power down the system
ipmiutil sel (isel) - a tool to show the firmware System Event Log records
ipmiutil sensor (isensor) - show the Sensor Data Records, readings, and thresholds.
ipmiutil serial (iserial) - a tool to show and configure the BMC Serial port for various modes, like Terminal Mode
ipmiutil sol (isol) - start or stop an IPMI Serial-Over-LAN Console session
ipmiutil sunoem (isunoem) - Sun OEM functions
ipmiutil wdt (iwdt) - show and set the watchdog timer
checksel - cron script using ipmiutil sel to check the SEL, write new events to the OS system log, and clear the SEL if nearly full.
ipmi_port - daemon to bind the RMCP port and sleep to prevent Linux portmap from stealing the RMCP port
ipmiutil_wdt - init script to restart watchdog timer every 60 sec via cron
ipmiutil_asy - init script runs 'ipmiutil getevt -a' for remote shutdown
ipmiutil_evt - init script runs 'ipmiutil getevt -s' for monitoring events
hpiutil/* - a set of parallel HPI utilities, conforming to the SA Forum Hardware Platform Interface, also the basis of the openhpi/clients/.
bmc_panic - a kernel patch to save information if the system panics. Included in the OpenIPMI driver in kernels 2.6 and greater. Included in the Intel IMB driver in v28 and greater.

There are also corresponding standard HPI utilities that run with two different HPI implementations, including OpenHPI. These were the basis of the current openhpi/clients.

IPMI interfaces are available on the local system, or remotely with the IPMI LAN interface. If you are using the IPMI LAN interface with ipmiutil utilities (-N option), neither the local or remote system requires any IPMI driver. Note that the IPMI LAN session password is sent with either MD5 or MD2 encryption by default. If run locally (as superuser), the ipmiutil utilities will use any one of the supported drivers which it detects.
The supported IPMI drivers in Linux are:
    the MontaVista OpenIPMI driver (/dev/ipmi0 or /dev/ipmi/0),
    the Intel IMB IPMI driver (/dev/imb, via ipmidrvr rpm or 'ipmi_imb'),
    the GNU FreeIPMI library (libfreeipmi.so, disabled by default),
    the LANDesk ldipmi daemon (disabled by default),
    the valinux IPMI Driver (/dev/ipmikcs, disabled by default), or
    direct user-space I/Os to the IPMI KCS or SSIF/SMBus interfaces. (included with ipmiutil-1.7.5 and later)
The utilities are built to detect which IPMI driver is available and use it, or, if no driver is detected, will use direct user-space I/Os to the IPMI BMC for either the KCS or SSIF/SMBus interface.
The supported IPMI drivers in Windows are:
    the Intel IMB IPMI driver (imbdrv.sys) for any Windows Server OS,
    the Microsoft IPMI driver (ipmidrv.sys) for Win2003R2 or Win2008.
The supported IPMI drivers in Solaris are:
    the Sun BMC IPMI driver (/dev/bmc) for Solaris 10, etc.
The supported IPMI drivers in FreeBSD are:
    the FreeBSD 7.x OpenIPMI driver port (/dev/ipmi0),
    direct user-space I/Os to the IPMI KCS or SSIF/SMBus interfaces.

ipmiutil Project History

This project started in October 2001 as part of the Carrier Grade Linux effort. It was then known as 'panicsel' and included a kernel patch to write a Linux panic event to the IPMI firmware log, as well as utilities.
This code was first included in MontaVista CGE Linux 2.1 in July 2002. The panicsel functionality was included in OSDL CGL 1.0 and 2.0 requirements. The kernel panic functionality was included in the OpenIPMI driver for 2.6 Linux kernels, and in the Intel IMB Linux driver v28 and greater. Compile flags for Windows 2000 & 2003 support were added in Jan 2004.
In August 2004, the project was moved from panicsel.sf.net to ipmiutil.sf.net. The new name more clearly reflects the purpose of the project in its current state.
In November 2004, support for IPMI LAN was added using FreeIPMI (1.5.0).
In May 2006, built-in IPMI LAN support was added (1.7.0).
In August 2006, driverless direct I/O support was added (1.7.5).
In Feb 2007, Linux Serial-Over-Lan console feature was added (1.9.2).
In Oct 2007, Windows SOL console and remote soft-shutdown features were added (2.0.0).
In Sep 2008, support for the Microsoft IPMI driver was added (2.2.1).
In Nov 2008, support for the Sun Solaris bmc driver was added (2.3.0).
In Mar 2009, support for the FreeBSD OS was added (2.3.5).
In Feb 2010, converted utility naming to i* names for Fedora 15 (2.6.0).
In Jun 2010, added picmg and firewall feature support (2.6.5).
In Sep 2010, added support for Intel S5520UR baseboards (2.7.0).
A Linux rpm and a Windows setup package for ipmiutil is included on the platform CD with Intel (and now Kontron) carrier-grade servers.
The ipmiutil (or panicsel) rpm is known to be included in the following Linux distributions: Fedora 15, SuSE SLES9, SLES10, OpenSuSE 11.4, MontaVista CGE 2.1, 3.0, 3.1, 4.0, Gentoo, RedFlag 5.0

Mailing List Discussion

This a community-based effort to add to existing efforts to improve or enhance the IPMI Utilities in Linux. If you are interested in participating in or contributing to this project, please send mail to the mailing list found here

IPMI Management Utilities

ipmiutil - Project Overview

(formerly known as panicsel)

An easy-to-use IPMI server management utility

ipmiutil Project History

Mailing List Discussion