RE: [Freeipmi-devel] Fujitsu's iRMC S2 - support for reading/writing of some configspace variables within ipmi-oem

[Liebig, Holger]

Hi Dan & Al,
> 
> Hi Dan,
> 
> On Mon, 2010-09-27 at 02:09 -0700, Dan Lukes wrote:
> > Hi.
> >
> > The Fujitsu's iRMC has implemented proprietary function for
> > reading/writing internal configuration variables.
> >
> > On supported operating OSes those variables are set by ServerView
> > drivers. On unsupported OSes they are not set.

Unfortunately we have to limit our Server Management support to a number of 
Operating Systems. We do know that some customers are not happy with this and 
that freeipmi or other open source solutions/tools are used to fill some of the 
gaps.

> >
> > The IPMI interface for reading/writing configspace is proprietary
> > interface not documented by FSC. 

Well, it is slightly more complicated than this. The configuration space is a 
higher level API for different Server Management implementations, where an IPMI 
based BMC is only one possible hardware solution and the number of supported 
config space values is System and BMC version dependent. Since it is a generic 
configuration interface for many different items, I do not know if it would be 
better to have a more generic solution for anything or read/write only a 
limited number of values with separate commands (for many customers ipmi-raw is 
also a solution). In the end, we normally recommend our Windows and DOS 
configuration tools or the build in Web Interface of the iRMC to our customers 
and provide information on how and what to write with low level API only when 
requested/needed.

Based on Dan's feedback I have addressed the issue of publishing the IPMI 
command and a set of supported config space values internally, but it's not up 
to me to make the final decision. Since we also need to publish this 
information for scripting purposes, sooner or later it will be available. So 
please be patient.
  
> 
> Generally speaking, I am willing to accept undocumented IPMI support.
> However, I do wish to be on good terms with all the vendors.  I
> certainly don't want to tick off some vendor by putting something into
> FreeIPMI they want to keep proprietary for some reason.
> 
> I know Holger regularly reads this mailing list.  If he or anyone from
> Fujitsu offers a blessing of sorts, then we can iterate through it and
> eventually get this into FreeIPMI.

For the items Dan has added support, I do not have any objections to add this 
to freeipmi.

> 
> Regardless of what we do, I think it'd be nice to get it published so
> others that are interested in it would be able to download it and patch
> their version of FreeIPMI themselves.

I did not see the actual patch from Dan attached to the mail, it only contained 
some of the older SEL decoding code.

Holger