Hey Carol, On Thu, 2008-05-01 at 17:09 -0700, Carol Hebert wrote: > On Thu, 2008-05-01 at 16:11 -0700, Al Chu wrote: > > Hey Carol, > > > > > As you may recall, during the > > > watchdog discussion several months back, we'd decided that full watchdog > > > "set" command support is too dangerous and we subsequently had some > > > patches pulled from the cvs tree which allowed that functionality. > > > > I missed the original thread and may not be getting all of it by reading > > the archived messages in the improper-thread-order. Why is this deemed > > too dangerous? Is it b/c users should be using the ipmi kernel driver > > watchdog? While a kernel driver watchdog is best, it may not be > > available to many users. Especially those that may not be using linux > > (not sure of the driver's porting), but more likely critical to those > > that control an appliance w/ ipmitool. i.e. they can manage the > > appliance with IPMI, but they can't control the OS on it. > > > > I would say rather than eliminate watchdog support, put something in the > > manpage and help that says, "don't use this unless you really know what > > you're doing." > > > > That's my 2 cents. > > > > Al > > > Hi Al, > > Thank you very much for your response and comments. :-) Well, you > really put me on the spot -- I had to go back nearly a year to find the > earlier discussion we'd had about this. Nevertheless, I found it back > in May of '07. The initial mail was dated 5/23/07 -- comments against > full watchdog set support follow (over a period of a few days I think) > from several folks, including Corey Minyard. > > I believe we'd agreed back then that if anyone wanted to send other > types of watchdog set commands (e.g. not simply "off"), then they should > use the ipmitool raw command interface -- that it's too dangerous to > provide easy access for remote box resets, among other reasons, via > watchdog.
I might be missing something here. But how would the watchdog commands be any more dangerous than ipmi commands for a power cycle or changing boot configuration? Is the feeling a user would have a greater likelihood of not knowing how to properly use it? > The code this patch replaces was not in any released version of ipmitool > nor was it complete/ready, so we wouldn't be eliminating functionality > that folks are generally using now Understood. Functionally the patch is fine. My comments are more of a general "design" comment. Al > . > > Thanks very much again for your comments and concerns. I suspected this > patch might re-start the discussion. :) > > Best wishes, > > Carol > -- Albert Chu [EMAIL PROTECTED] 925-422-5311 Computer Scientist High Performance Systems Division Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100. Use priority code J8TL2D2. http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone _______________________________________________ Ipmitool-devel mailing list Ipmitool-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ipmitool-devel
