[Freeipmi-users] RE: [Freeipmi-devel] Re: SEL datestamp 01-Jan-1970?

[Andy Cress]

Al,

You could use pre-init or uninitialized, both are fine and mean the
same.
The IPMI spec doesn't say either way.

Rather than mask out the 1-Jan-1970, however, in ipmiutil I display it
as is, for this reason:
If the power is removed, then restored, the BMC starts up with
1-Jan-1970 00:00:00.
However, if the system is plugged in but not powered up to BIOS POST for
a while,
this would show up in the SEL timestamp as something like 1-Jan-1970
01:20:00,
meaning that the system was plugged in an hour and 20 minutes ago, but
not powered up yet.

Masking the real data with a "pre-init" string, or masking the actual
sensor reading value as "unknown" is one of the faults of ipmitool, IMO.

Andy


-----Original Message-----
From: Al Chu [mailto:address@hidden 
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 4:44 PM
To: Andy Cress
Cc: address@hidden; address@hidden; address@hidden
Subject: RE: [Freeipmi-devel] Re: SEL datestamp 01-Jan-1970?

Hey Andy,

Do you know if the phrase "Pre-init timestamp" is defined by some spec
(maybe outside of the IPMI one)?  I remember seeing that ipmitool
outputs this when the timestamp is 0, but is this really the right
phrase or just what an ipmitool coder picked?  I do agree that perhaps a
"Uninitialized" or atleast something else should be output instead of
01-Jan-1970.

Al

On Tue, 2009-02-17 at 12:50 -0800, Andy Cress wrote:
> Won,
> 
> That date is actually a 0 value, meaning 0 seconds since 1-Jan-1970.  
> Most of the time, the BMC stays running on 5V standby power, but if
the
> BMC firmware restarts (e.g. after input power is lost or unplugged),
it
> starts over and starts its clock value at 0 until BIOS comes up and
> gives it the real clock value.  
> So, you'd expect to see a "Pre-init timestamp" in this case because
the
> SEL shows that the input power was lost.  
> 
> Andy
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: address@hidden
> [mailto:address@hidden
On
> Behalf Of Al Chu
> Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 12:34 PM
> To: address@hidden
> Cc: address@hidden; address@hidden
> Subject: [Freeipmi-devel] Re: SEL datestamp 01-Jan-1970?
> 
> Hey Won,
> 
> Well, I don't know if "normal" is the right phrase to use :-)  From my
> experiences, many motherboards do report incorrect timestamps.
FreeIPMI
> simply parses whatever information is on the motherboard.  So if it is
> given a bad timestamp, it will output whatever that timestamp equates
> to.
> 
> Al
> 
> On Tue, 2009-02-17 at 08:29 -0800, Won De Erick wrote:
> > Hi All,
> > 
> > it seems that the CMOS battery is just fine. I've replicated this to
> several similar boxes.
> > 
> > Is this related to how freeipmi parses logs? or this is just normal?
> > 
> > Thanks in advance.
> > 
> > Won
> > 
> > 
> > --- On Fri, 2/13/09, Won De Erick <address@hidden> wrote:
> > > Hi Al,
> > > 
> > > I noticed the following erroneous datestamps when viewing
> > > SEL.
> > > 
> > > #ipmi-sel
> > > 144:08-Feb-2009 03:51:08:System Event System
> > > Event:Timestamp Clock Synch
> > > 164:08-Feb-2009 03:51:03:System Event System
> > > Event:Timestamp Clock Synch
> > > 184:08-Feb-2009 03:51:25:System Event System Event:OEM
> > > System Boot Event
> > > ...
> > > 444:01-Jan-1970 08:00:11:Power Supply Power Supply 2:Power
> > > Supply input lost (AC/DC)
> > > 464:01-Jan-1970 08:00:12:Power Unit Power
> > > Redundancy:Entered from Non-redundant:Insufficient Resources
> > > 484:01-Jan-1970 08:00:50:System Event System
> > > Event:Timestamp Clock Synch
> > > 504:10-Feb-2009 11:45:09:System Event System
> > > Event:Timestamp Clock Synch
> > > 
> > > I've replicated this to several machines. Though the
> > > CMOS battery could be the potential reason, I want to know
> > > if ipmi-sel is related to this, or has something to do with
> > > this.
> > > 
> > > Thanks,
> > > 
> > > Won
> > 
> > 
> >       
> > 
-- 
Albert Chu
address@hidden
Computer Scientist
High Performance Systems Division
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory


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