[Freeipmi-devel] Re: [Freeipmi-users] bmc-autoconfig: drop for 0.5.0 release?

[Al Chu]

On Tue, 2007-08-14 at 15:35 -0700, Anand Babu Periasamy wrote:
> Hi Al,
> Comments inline ..
> 
> Al Chu writes:
> 
> > Hey A.B.,
> > 
> > On Tue, 2007-08-14 at 03:27 -0700, Anand Babu Periasamy wrote:
> >> Hi Al,
> >> * It is still maintained. 
> > 
> > If that's the case, it is pretty out of date:
> > 
> > A) manpage is out of date and not using the common/doc/ common
> > manpage stuff (if it did the later, it would automatically be
> > updated with my changes).
> 
> I already updated man page before writing my previous mail.

The one I see in CVS doesn't use the common/doc manpages, it still has
old options cut-and-pasted in.

> > B) it doesn't configure anything SOL related
> 
> Can you please add the best SOL default config to the template?

This is my point.  If you guys aren't interested in maintaining bmc-
autoconfig along w/ bmc-config, and I don't want to maintain it, and (it
seems) no one uses it, then we should get rid of it!! :-)  

> >> * BMC-Autoconfig is not a GUI wizard for bmc-config. It is supposed
> >> to ask minimum questions from the user and automatically configure
> >> the BMC with known defaults. It is intended for users without any
> >> knowledge of IPMI to quickly get a basic working setup.
> >>
> >> * It does enable LAN and configure NULL, admin, operator and
> >> ipmiuser accounts. See the template file, you will get an idea what
> >> all it configures.
> >> 
> > 
> > How does the user know what the default configured usernames are?
> > No documentation indicates what they are.  The user is supposed to
> > cat the template file?  Or run bmc-config --checkout to figure it
> > out?
> 
> I shows the configured user names on exit. I did that before writing
> my previous mail.
> 
> > 
> > Also, I see:
> > 
> > "
> > Note:-
> > Passwords are not set or cleared.  If you want to set password for
> > BMC user, run
> > 
> > bmc-config --commit -f 'User<N>.Password=<PASSWORD>'
> > "
> > 
> > in bmc-autoconfig.  So the user has to run bmc-config anyways to
> > configure the passwords?  Why not set some defaults?
> 
> I am not sure why Avati did do so. I agree, we should set some default
> passwords too and throw a nice summary in a dialog screen only. User's
> may not notice these messages otherwise. We will fix it.
> 
> >> If you have suggestions to improve, let us know?
> > 
> > The tool also does not handle the fact that BMCs have a variable
> > number of users.  So what if the BMC only allows 2 users?
> 
> In that case, at least anonymous 'NULL' user with administrative
> privileges  and one 'ipmiuser' with user privileges will be
> configured.
>
> > How will bmc-autoconfig handle the variable number of supported
> > cipher suite configurations different vendors provide?
> 
> It configures with PLAIN-TEXT passwords which is supported on all
> systems. I would consider cipher settings as advanced and recommend
> bmc-config instead.

That's my point A.B.  Cipher settings are advanced and necessary for
SOL.  Most users wouldn't want to touch them.  So bmc-autoconfig should
handle it.  Why would you leave it to bmc-config?

Al

-- 
Albert Chu
address@hidden
925-422-5311
Computer Scientist
High Performance Systems Division
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory