Re: [Freeipmi-devel] Question regarding windows version

[FredericBohe]

Hello all,

I have indeed quickly tried to build FreeIPMI a while ago with MinGW. We choose 
MinGW to avoid DLL dependencies (and so get-rid of Cygwin licenses concerns) 
and because it can be cross compiled on Linux. Unsurprisingly, It has failed 
very quickly in many ways. I tried to hack the code to make it a bit further 
but it appears that it needs quite a bit of work to make it build entirely. So 
I give up by lack of time.
Anyway, beside the lack of time, what I fear when porting projects like 
FreeIPMI is low level hardware access. I don't know much about IPMI in general 
and FreeIPMI in particular, but I have read the word "driver" somewhere in the 
code. Porting ioctl() calls is not trivial and might require to use the WDK 
(Windows Driver Kit) which is another story.
How does this is ported with Cygwin ? (or is it ported ?) Is it possible to 
get-rid of those drivers in a first porting effort, or is it a required part of 
the project ?

Regards,
Fred

--
Eaton Opensource Team - http://opensource.eaton.com



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________________________________________
From: Arnaud Quette address@hidden
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2012 10:45 AM
To: Albert Chu
Cc: address@hidden; address@hidden; Bohe, Frederic
Subject: Re: [Freeipmi-devel] Question regarding windows version

Hi Al,

I'm adding Fred (the team member I mentioned before) to start discussing more 
technically.
He will argument on mingw interest, and will try to provide a first feedback on 
what is going wrong.

What I'd like to see emerging is a plan that involve at least you (Al), Fred 
and I to speed up this port, if we find it can be addressed in a suitable and 
timely fashion...

cheers,
Arnaud
--
Engineering Linux/Unix Expert - Opensource Solutions Lead - Eaton - 
http://opensource.eaton.com
NUT (Network UPS Tools) Project Leader - http://www.networkupstools.org
Debian Developer - http://www.debian.org
Free Software Developer - http://arnaud.quette.fr

2012/12/5 Albert Chu <address@hidden<mailto:address@hidden>>
> It's great to see that this thread is still alive.
> I've some Windows server that are IPMI capable, under the hand.
> And I'm seriously considering the option of a mingw port of FreeIPMI,
> and would be pouring some resources into this effort.
> A member of my team very quickly tried a compilation, but it has been
> so miserably failing that he thrown the towel almost instantly...
>
> So, would you be considering a mingw effort?
> How could we help and synchronize?

I hadn't heard of mingw until now, so I'll have to look at that at some
point.

Awhile back I made sure that FreeIPMI would compile under cygwin, but my
Windows box didn't have IPMI and I left it at the "if it compiles, I'll
assume it works" stage.  Longer term, I am more interested in it working
"natively".

I'm very amenable to patches from the community to simply support a
Windows build.  We can iterate over them on the mailing list, or if
someone out there wants to discuss steps to move forward before pouring
in effort, that's cool too.

I guess I'm not entirely sure of the steps in the right direction.  I
don't have experience developing Windows applications natively, and w/o
a box to test/play on, I sort of can't start learning/fiddling.

Al


On Wed, 2012-12-05 at 20:10 +0100, Arnaud Quette wrote:
> Hi Albert and the list,
>
> 2012/12/5 Albert Chu <address@hidden<mailto:address@hidden>>
>         Hi Patrick,
>
>         > first of all your tool is really awesome. I like the concept
>         and
>         > respect the effort you guys are putting into development.
>         Since
>         > Release you are constantly updating this tool and making it
>         better.
>
>         Thanks
>
> I'm seconding Patrick. And especially you Al, you are doing an awesome
> work with FreeIPMI!
>
>
>         > I have one little question. We are having many Windows Based
>         Systems
>         > here, so there is no chance I can use and benefit from
>         freeipmi. So my
>         > question is if you have ever considered to do an windows
>         version of
>         > free ipmi. There is only one tool available “ipmiutil” that
>         supports
>         > windows, it is also open source, but lacks some relevant
>         things.  I
>         > would be please to use your free ipmi tool on a windows
>         machine.
>
>         I personally wouldn't mind trying to get FreeIPMI to work in
>         Windows,
>         however I've never had access to Windows running on an IPMI
>         capable
>         server.  It's something my company just doesn't do.
>
>         So I just don't have the capability to do it.  I have always
>         hoped that
>         someone from the community would be able to add support.
>
> It's great to see that this thread is still alive.
> I've some Windows server that are IPMI capable, under the hand.
> And I'm seriously considering the option of a mingw port of FreeIPMI,
> and would be pouring some resources into this effort.
> A member of my team very quickly tried a compilation, but it has been
> so miserably failing that he thrown the towel almost instantly...
>
> So, would you be considering a mingw effort?
> How could we help and synchronize?
>
> cheers,
> Arnaud
>
> --
> NUT (Network UPS Tools) Project Leader -
> http://www.networkupstools.org
> Debian Developer - http://www.debian.org
> Free Software Developer - http://arnaud.quette.fr
>
--
Albert Chu
address@hidden<mailto:address@hidden>
Computer Scientist
High Performance Systems Division
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory