[Freeipmi-users] Re: FreeIPMI 1.0.1 Released

[Albert Chu]

Hey John,

I'll add something into the docs to give users hints on how to tell if
their system has IPMI.  Most users know from their product
documentation.

As for having the tools say if IPMI is supported on your system or not,
it's unfortunately very difficult/impossible.  The IPMI spec does not
provide enough/define enough to make it possible.  For example, I have
several motherboards that do not give you *any* information that IPMI is
available (discounting product manuals).  Once FreeIPMI starts poking at
default locations, it just happens to work.  To contrast, I have seen
some motherboards provide invalid information saying that IPMI is not
supported, yet if the tools ignore this and try to communicate via IPMI
anyways, it'll work.

I'll see if I can add something better to handle your situation, but
it's difficult to get something that can make FreeIPMI best for all
situations.

As for whether your motherboard supports IPMI, the below suggests its
not supported since it cannot find any IPMI support info in various
BIOS/SMBIOS/PCI locations [1].

Thanks,

Al

[1] - BTW, the 1.0.1 release of FreeIPMI does not output the default
values by default (which I think confused people).  I assume you
installed FreeIPMI out of your distro, which may have had an older
version.

On Wed, 2011-01-26 at 19:33 -0800, John Gilmore wrote:
> I tried installing freeipmi on my system, but I can't get it working.
> I don't even know if my motherboard contains IPMI support.  How can
> I tell?  The FAQ doesn't say, the README doesn't say, the tools don't
> say, their man pages don't say what they do on a machine without IPMI.
> There's no obvious command to "test whether this system implements IPMI".
> 
> Please add some clarity to the documentation, for people who have no
> idea whether this hardware exists in their system or on their network.
> And possibly evolve the commands themselves so that they are clear about
> whether they see any IPMI hardware or not.
> 
> The closest thing to diagnostic info that I can give you comes from:
> 
> % sudo ipmi-locate
> Probing KCS device using DMIDECODE... FAILED
> 
> Probing SMIC device using DMIDECODE... FAILED
> 
> Probing BT device using DMIDECODE... FAILED
> 
> Probing SSIF device using DMIDECODE... FAILED
> 
> Probing KCS device using SMBIOS... FAILED
> 
> Probing SMIC device using SMBIOS... FAILED
> 
> Probing BT device using SMBIOS... FAILED
> 
> Probing SSIF device using SMBIOS... FAILED
> 
> Probing KCS device using ACPI... FAILED
> 
> Probing SMIC device using ACPI... FAILED
> 
> Probing BT device using ACPI... FAILED
> 
> Probing SSIF device using ACPI... FAILED
> 
> Probing KCS device using PCI... FAILED
> 
> Probing SMIC device using PCI... FAILED
> 
> Probing BT device using PCI... FAILED
> 
> Probing SSIF device using PCI... FAILED
> 
> KCS device default values: 
> IPMI Version: 1.5
> IPMI locate driver: DEFAULT
> IPMI interface: KCS
> BMC driver device: 
> BMC I/O base address: 0xCA2
> Register spacing: 1
> 
> SMIC device default values: 
> IPMI Version: 1.5
> IPMI locate driver: DEFAULT
> IPMI interface: SMIC
> BMC driver device: 
> BMC I/O base address: 0xCA9
> Register spacing: 1
> 
> BT device default values: 
> SSIF device default values: 
> IPMI Version: 1.5
> IPMI locate driver: DEFAULT
> IPMI interface: SSIF
> BMC driver device: /dev/i2c-0
> BMC SMBUS slave address: 0x42
> Register spacing: 1
> 
> % 
> 
> So, does that mean I have hardware or not?  No other command seems
> to do anything, e.g.:
> 
> % sudo bmc-info
> ipmi_cmd_get_device_id: driver timeout
> %
> 
> I did look for SMbus devices in lspci, and I have one:
> 
> 00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 Host Bridge (rev 10)
> 00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
> 00:07.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
> 00:12.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA
> 00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI0)
> 00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI1)
> 00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI2)
> 00:13.3 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI3)
> 00:13.4 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI4)
> 00:13.5 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB Controller (EHCI)
> 00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 13)
> 00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE
> 00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
> 00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge
> 00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
> 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] 
> HyperTransport Technology Configuration
> 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] 
> Address Map
> 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM 
> Controller
> 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] 
> Miscellaneous Control
> 01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS482 [Radeon Xpress 
> 200]
> 01:05.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Xpress Series (RS482)
> 07:04.0 Mass storage controller: Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3512 
> [SATALink/SATARaid] Serial ATA Controller (rev 01)
> 3f:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5755 Gigabit 
> Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
> 
> But I don't know if my kernel has the proper driver, or indeed whether
> this SMbus driver is what IPMI requires.  I'm running Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS.
> 
> Thank you for creating this software.
> 
>       John Gilmore
-- 
Albert Chu
address@hidden
Computer Scientist
High Performance Systems Division
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory