Chris Adams wrote: >I've got a few servers that support IPMI now, and I'm looking at what I >need to do to make use of it (I have no IPMI experience). I'd like to >use the ability to remotely power cycle servers when needed and to have >remote serial console (without additional serial console hardware). > >How do people set this up? Do you use a separate LAN (and private IPs)? >What do the kernel modules add to IPMI (I thought IPMI was below the >OS)? > >I've been looking at various bits of information but I'm having trouble >getting a "big picture" idea about all the pieces and how they fit >together. > >Thanks for help and/or pointers.
We have some experience with IPMI-enabled hosts here at Wisconsin. We're using it for the usual suspects (remote console, reboot/power control, and monitoring) and our experience has been overall positive. We've gone with separate network connections for main host and service processor, as we feel that lets us provide better security for the IPMI traffic. This really depends on your local security models/plan/etc. The kernel modules enable the 'open' protocol to talk IPMI from the local OS to the service processor(s). You'll need this to initially configure the service processor(s) for most vendor's implementations. Once the configuration is done, you can unload the modules and just talk over the network, but we leave the modules loaded for convenience. You didn't mention whether you were using ipmitool for all your access, or if you were using a vendor tool. We use ipmitool for everything, and have yet to find a need to upgrade to a version newer that the default shipped (for both EL4 and EL5). We have found it necessary to upgrade vendor's service processor firmware to get the features we need working in every case we've encountered thus far. We're in the midst of replacing a combination of discreet serial console concentrators and various power control products with IPMI. So far, we're finding IPMI to be somewhat cumbersome to deploy and rather finicky to get properly configured, but far more elegant on the production side once we get all the configuration and deployment infrastructure correct. The IPMI protocol provides for serial-over-IPMI capability. Some vendors do proprietary kvm-over-LAN/IPMI implementations. We use Sun's, which is nice in that it also gives you full access to the BIOS and any utility you can boot (save _lots_ of footsteps). I've heard rumors that Dell has that, tho' I haven't used it personally. There are some pretty good internal docs at cern (https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/b in/view/FIOgroup/IpmiRefSolSetup) that might help you understand what's involved in setting up a typical service processor. Google is your f(r)iend. Cheers, Dave Thompson UW-Madison Computer Sciences Dept. _______________________________________________ rhelv5-list mailing list [email protected] https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/rhelv5-list
