Re: [Freeipmi-users] Help | Cannot Detect Nodes with IPMI

[Albert Chu]

Hi Jeff,

On Tue, 2018-01-09 at 17:14 -0800, Jeff Van wrote:
> Hi Al, 
> 
> Thank you for the response! 
> 
> As a follow up question, would you happen to be able to describe how
> one might do BIOS configs to determine which port allows IPMI? 

Every motherboard is different, so you'll ultimately have to look into
the product info for your board.

> After searching on the internet on how to do it, I've tried the
> following on the head node:
> Pressed F2 to enter system setup after system Power-On Self-Test
> (POST, or while it's booting up). However, after combing through the
> settings options, I could not find any information about IPMI and
> associated ports.  The closest thing I could find was under
> "Integrated Devices", where it displayed the capabilities of the NIC
> ports, which I've included a screenshot of, in this email. However,
> none of the NIC ports display IPMI or idrac under the "capabilities"
> section. Additionally, in my configurations, I have NIC Selection set
> to Shared on both the head node and the node I am trying to
> communicate with, in case that makes a difference.

I haven't worked on a poweredge for years, so I can only go off
recollection.  My recollection is somewhere in the BIOS is some type of
"baseboard management" config and one could pick things like
"dedicated", "shared" in the BIOS.  Take this with a grain of salt, as
I may be confusing this other motherboards.

In the ipmi-oem manpage, "shared" indicates IPMI only works on NIC1. 
So that seems like a reasonable config if you're using NIC1.

Al

> I've also tried pressing ctrl + e after POST, but that takes me to
> configurations that are very similar to pressing F10.
> 
> I've also tried pressing F10 to enter hardware configuration
> settings, but I was not able to find any useful information there
> either.
> 
> If there is any other useful information or advice that you could
> give me, I would very much appreciate it! I understand that you must
> be busy, so thank you again for taking the time to help me with
> this. 
> 
> Additionally, I have included a diagram of the physical ports on the
> back of my Dell Poweredge R710. Currently, the cable connecting the
> two nodes are plugged in the left-most port in at number 10 of the
> diagram. 
> 
> On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 5:22 PM, Albert Chu <address@hidden> wrote:
> > Hi Jeff,
> > 
> > > I have double checked the BMC configuration for these nodes, and
> > they
> > > seem to be correct (I can provide screenshots if necessary), 
> > > however, I am still unable to communicate with these servers
> > using 
> > > IPMI. (eg. ipmipower, ipmiping, etc. all do not work.) and I am
> > not 
> > > sure what else I can do. If anybody could help me or point me in
> > the 
> > > right direction, I would very much appreciate it!
> > 
> > It's hard to know for sure what the problem could or could not be. 
> > But
> > if ipmiping isn't even working, that means something very basic is
> > not
> > configured correctly.  Here's some ideas of what to look at:
> > 
> > A) ensure that basic networking is setup correctly on both client
> > and
> > server.  i.e. valid IP, subnet, MAC, etc.  Most use a different IP
> > address from their "main" IP address for the node.  Ensure that
> > this IP
> > address can be resolved on the client (i.e. IP converted into MAC
> > address).  You can check the ARP cache to see if it's been done
> > correctly.
> > 
> > B) ensure IPMI is enabled (most notably LAN_Channel configuration).
> > 
> > C) ensure you're using the right networking port.  Many
> > motherboards
> > only support IPMI on one of their networking ports if there is >
> > 1.  Or
> > sometimes BIOS configs need to be done to determine which port
> > allows
> > IPMI.
> > 
> > I've personally worked with Poweredges before, and suspect C above
> > is
> > your problem.  You may want to look into the ipmi-oem command
> > manpage
> > and read through some of the extensions in there for "Dell" and any
> > commands that apply to Poweredges.
> > 
> > Al
> > 
> > On Mon, 2018-01-08 at 17:04 -0800, Jeff Van wrote:
> > > Hello! I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this
> > question,
> > > but if
> > > not, please let me know where I can direct my question.
> > >
> > > I am currently using MAAS Version 1.9.5+bzr4599-0ubuntu1 with
> > Ubuntu
> > > 14.04.5, with three nodes (all Dell PowerEdge R710). I am
> > currently
> > > trying
> > > to use IPMI version 2.0.
> > >
> > > However, I am unable to power-up these nodes with IPMI, due to an
> > > error:
> > > Failed to query node's BMC - Power state could not be queried:
> > > 10.1.10.134:
> > > connection timeout
> > >
> > > In /var/log/maas/maas.log, an identical error message appears.
> > >
> > > I have double checked the BMC configuration for these nodes, and
> > they
> > > seem
> > > to be correct (I can provide screenshots if necessary), however,
> > I am
> > > still
> > > unable to communicate with these servers using IPMI. (eg.
> > ipmipower,
> > > ipmiping, etc. all do not work.) and I am not sure what else I
> > can
> > > do. If
> > > anybody could help me or point me in the right direction, I would
> > > very much
> > > appreciate it!
> > >
> > > If there's any more useful information that I can provide, please
> > let
> > > me
> > > know.
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Freeipmi-users mailing list
> > > address@hidden
> > > https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/freeipmi-users
> > --
> > Albert Chu
> > address@hidden
> > Computer Scientist
> > High Performance Systems Division
> > Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
-- 
Albert Chu
address@hidden
Computer Scientist
High Performance Systems Division
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory