The Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) specification defines a set of common interfaces to a computer system which system administrators can use to monitor system health and manage the system. Several dozen companies support IPMI. Dell, HP, Intel Corporation and NEC Corporation announced IPMI v1.0 on 1998-09-16, v1.5 on 2001-03-01, and v2.0 on 2004-02-14.
IPMI operates independently of the operating system (OS) and allows administrators to manage a system remotely even in the absence of the OS or the system management software, or even if the monitored system is not powered on. IPMI can also function when the OS has started, and offers enhanced features when used with the system management software. IPMI gives only the structure and format of the interfaces as a standard; implementation may vary.
For details, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Platform_Management_Interface
Installing
Before you can use IPMI on a FreeBSD server, you will need to load the impi kernel module (or compile it in the kernel).
- Code: Select all
kldload ipmi
kldstat
OR
- Code: Select all
vi /boot/loader.conf
ipmi_load="YES"
- Code: Select all
shutdown -r now
Next you will need to install the ipmitool client to talk ipmi and get information about your server.
- Code: Select all
cd /usr/ports/sysutils/ipmitool
make install clean
If your server hardware has a BMC (board management controller), then the following commands should work for you:
- Code: Select all
ipmitool -I open chassis status
ipmitool -I open sel list
ipmitool -I open sdr type temperature
ipmitool -I open fru print
Supported Hardware
Dell: http://linux.dell.com/ipmi.shtml
On Dell 1750 systems, support for IMPI 1.0 is available using the ERA/O card. But after testing on Freebsd 7.0 STABLE, the BIOS doesn't seems to send information about the IPMI BMC. So it must be added manually via:
- Code: Select all
vi /boot/device.hints
hint.ipmi.0.at=isa0
hint.ipmi.0.mode=KCS
Additional information can be found at http://www.freebsdwiki.net/index.php/IPMI
