On Mon, Dec 09, 2013 at 10:34:50PM -0500, wuffers wrote: > Huh, I had recently updated all my servers' IPMI firmware as well as BIOS > recently, and didn't notice this new feature.
The other new feature is a power usage/statistics screen which is kinda cool, but only works if your power supply has an i2c connection to the motherboard. And then this version is supposed to fix some of the swiss cheese security holes that the previous ipmi firmware had. It breaks using SOL over the ssh interface though, I have an open bug report on that, they say they're working on it. > It's kind of interesting that they're trying to charge for it (at least > that's the assumption with an "activation key"). Not just an assumption, support verified it's an additional cost feature, they think it will run about $15 but said I needed to check with a reseller to verify. > It's useful, but outside of the "fix corrupted BIOS" (which would > probably save themselves $$$), not worth a premium. How hard is it to > update the BIOS manually by hand anyways? Well, by hand typically involves visiting the box, maybe to stick in a USB stick, if nothing else to clear the CMOS (unless you ignore that part of the bios update instructions). Plus some boards (like the X9DRi-F) recommend you disable the Intel management engine bios by moving jumpers before updating the bios. The IPMI method doesn't need any physical proximity, so if you've got a *lot* of boxes, it would save a lot of time. I made the point to support that given they will reprogram boards with corrupted BIOS chips for free even out of warranty, which probably costs them more than $15, it would be a cost savings to just include it. They actually agreed, but said upper management decided to nickel and dime it <sigh>. > I've just emailed my reseller about this, so I'll update this thread when I > get a response. Cool, thanks. I assume they need a serial number or something to tie it to the specific board, otherwise you could just buy one activation key and use it everywhere. _______________________________________________ OmniOS-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.omniti.com/mailman/listinfo/omnios-discuss
