Re: [Freeipmi-users] Re: FreeIPMI 1.0.1 Released

[Albert Chu]

Hey John,

I've added a section to the FAQ on the website to add a little bit of
info to atleast point people in the right direction.  There will also be
some manpage updates in the next release.

Thanks,

Al

On Thu, 2011-01-27 at 10:17 -0800, Albert Chu wrote:
> Hey John,
> 
> I'll add something into the docs to give users hints on how to tell if
> their system has IPMI.  Most users know from their product
> documentation.
> 
> As for having the tools say if IPMI is supported on your system or not,
> it's unfortunately very difficult/impossible.  The IPMI spec does not
> provide enough/define enough to make it possible.  For example, I have
> several motherboards that do not give you *any* information that IPMI is
> available (discounting product manuals).  Once FreeIPMI starts poking at
> default locations, it just happens to work.  To contrast, I have seen
> some motherboards provide invalid information saying that IPMI is not
> supported, yet if the tools ignore this and try to communicate via IPMI
> anyways, it'll work.
> 
> I'll see if I can add something better to handle your situation, but
> it's difficult to get something that can make FreeIPMI best for all
> situations.
> 
> As for whether your motherboard supports IPMI, the below suggests its
> not supported since it cannot find any IPMI support info in various
> BIOS/SMBIOS/PCI locations [1].
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Al
> 
> [1] - BTW, the 1.0.1 release of FreeIPMI does not output the default
> values by default (which I think confused people).  I assume you
> installed FreeIPMI out of your distro, which may have had an older
> version.
> 
> On Wed, 2011-01-26 at 19:33 -0800, John Gilmore wrote:
> > I tried installing freeipmi on my system, but I can't get it working.
> > I don't even know if my motherboard contains IPMI support.  How can
> > I tell?  The FAQ doesn't say, the README doesn't say, the tools don't
> > say, their man pages don't say what they do on a machine without IPMI.
> > There's no obvious command to "test whether this system implements IPMI".
> > 
> > Please add some clarity to the documentation, for people who have no
> > idea whether this hardware exists in their system or on their network.
> > And possibly evolve the commands themselves so that they are clear about
> > whether they see any IPMI hardware or not.
> > 
> > The closest thing to diagnostic info that I can give you comes from:
> > 
> > % sudo ipmi-locate
> > Probing KCS device using DMIDECODE... FAILED
> > 
> > Probing SMIC device using DMIDECODE... FAILED
> > 
> > Probing BT device using DMIDECODE... FAILED
> > 
> > Probing SSIF device using DMIDECODE... FAILED
> > 
> > Probing KCS device using SMBIOS... FAILED
> > 
> > Probing SMIC device using SMBIOS... FAILED
> > 
> > Probing BT device using SMBIOS... FAILED
> > 
> > Probing SSIF device using SMBIOS... FAILED
> > 
> > Probing KCS device using ACPI... FAILED
> > 
> > Probing SMIC device using ACPI... FAILED
> > 
> > Probing BT device using ACPI... FAILED
> > 
> > Probing SSIF device using ACPI... FAILED
> > 
> > Probing KCS device using PCI... FAILED
> > 
> > Probing SMIC device using PCI... FAILED
> > 
> > Probing BT device using PCI... FAILED
> > 
> > Probing SSIF device using PCI... FAILED
> > 
> > KCS device default values: 
> > IPMI Version: 1.5
> > IPMI locate driver: DEFAULT
> > IPMI interface: KCS
> > BMC driver device: 
> > BMC I/O base address: 0xCA2
> > Register spacing: 1
> > 
> > SMIC device default values: 
> > IPMI Version: 1.5
> > IPMI locate driver: DEFAULT
> > IPMI interface: SMIC
> > BMC driver device: 
> > BMC I/O base address: 0xCA9
> > Register spacing: 1
> > 
> > BT device default values: 
> > SSIF device default values: 
> > IPMI Version: 1.5
> > IPMI locate driver: DEFAULT
> > IPMI interface: SSIF
> > BMC driver device: /dev/i2c-0
> > BMC SMBUS slave address: 0x42
> > Register spacing: 1
> > 
> > % 
> > 
> > So, does that mean I have hardware or not?  No other command seems
> > to do anything, e.g.:
> > 
> > % sudo bmc-info
> > ipmi_cmd_get_device_id: driver timeout
> > %
> > 
> > I did look for SMbus devices in lspci, and I have one:
> > 
> > 00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 Host Bridge (rev 10)
> > 00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
> > 00:07.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
> > 00:12.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA
> > 00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI0)
> > 00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI1)
> > 00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI2)
> > 00:13.3 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI3)
> > 00:13.4 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI4)
> > 00:13.5 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB Controller (EHCI)
> > 00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 13)
> > 00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE
> > 00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
> > 00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge
> > 00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
> > 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] 
> > HyperTransport Technology Configuration
> > 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] 
> > Address Map
> > 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] 
> > DRAM Controller
> > 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] 
> > Miscellaneous Control
> > 01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS482 [Radeon 
> > Xpress 200]
> > 01:05.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Xpress Series 
> > (RS482)
> > 07:04.0 Mass storage controller: Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3512 
> > [SATALink/SATARaid] Serial ATA Controller (rev 01)
> > 3f:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5755 Gigabit 
> > Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
> > 
> > But I don't know if my kernel has the proper driver, or indeed whether
> > this SMbus driver is what IPMI requires.  I'm running Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS.
> > 
> > Thank you for creating this software.
> > 
> >     John Gilmore
-- 
Albert Chu
address@hidden
Computer Scientist
High Performance Systems Division
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory