\input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
@c This file uses the @command command introduced in Texinfo 4.0.
@c %**start of header
@setfilename freeipmi-faq.info
@settitle FreeIPMI - Frequently Asked Questions
@finalout
@c %**end of header

@include version-faq.texi

@copying
This manual is for FreeIPMI (version @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}).
Copyright @copyright{} 2006-2010 FreeIPMI Core Team

@quotation
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
@end quotation
@end copying

@dircategory Platform Management
@direntry
* FreeIPMI FAQ: (freeipmi-faq).  FreeIPMI - Frequently Asked Questions
@end direntry

@ifinfo
Copyright @copyright{} 2003-2010 FreeIPMI Core Team.


@end ifinfo

@titlepage
@title FreeIPMI Frequently Asked Questions
@subtitle Free Intelligent Platform Management System
@subtitle Version @value{VERSION} updated on @today{}
@author by Albert Chu @email{chu11@@llnl.gov}
@c @author by Anand Babu @email{ab@@gnu.org.in}

@page
@vskip 0pt plus 1filll
Copyright @copyright{} 2003-2010 FreeIPMI Core Team

@insertcopying
@end titlepage


@node Top, What is IPMI, (dir), (dir)
@ifinfo
Frequently Asked Questions on @strong{FreeIPMI}

This edition of the documentation was last updated on @today{} for
release @value{VERSION} of the FreeIPMI.
@end ifinfo

@menu
* What is IPMI::                
* What is FreeIPMI?::       
* How did FreeIPMI start?::           
* What operating systems does FreeIPMI run on?::
* FreeIPMI vs OpenIPMI vs Ipmitool vs Ipmiutil::  
* What is special about FreeIPMI::  
* Serial Over LAN (SOL) / Ipmiconsole Setup::
* SSIF Driver Configuration::   
* x86-64 Compilation::          
* libgcrypt requirement::          
* Installing FreeIPMI on FreeBSD::
@end menu

@c Output the table of contents at the beginning.
@contents

@node What is IPMI, What is FreeIPMI?, Top, Top
@section @acronym{IPMI} - Platform Management Standard

The @acronym{IPMI} specifications define standardized, abstracted interfaces to
the platform management subsystem.  @acronym{IPMI} includes the definition of
interfaces for extending platform management between the board within the
main chassis and between multiple chassis.

The term platform management is used to refer to the monitoring and
control functions that are built in to the platform hardware and
primarily used for the purpose of monitoring the health of the system
hardware.  This typically includes monitoring elements such as system
temperatures, voltages, fans, power supplies, bus errors, system
physical security, etc.  It includes automatic and manually driven
recovery capabilities such as local or remote system resets and power
on/off operations.  It includes the logging of abnormal or out-of-range
conditions for later examination and alerting where the platform
issues the alert without aid of run-time software.  Lastly it includes
inventory information that can help identify a failed hardware unit.

@node What is FreeIPMI?, How did FreeIPMI start?, What is IPMI, Top
@section What is FreeIPMI?

FreeIPMI is a collection of Intelligent Platform Management
@acronym{IPMI} system software.  It provides in-band and out-of-band
software and a development library conforming to the Intelligent
Platform Management Interface (@acronym{IPMI} v1.5 and v2.0)
standards.

@node How did FreeIPMI start?, What operating systems does FreeIPMI run on?, What is FreeIPMI?, Top
@section How did FreeIPMI start?

In October 2003, California Digital Corp. (CDC) was contracted by
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) for the assembly of
Thunder, a 1024 node Itanium2 cluster.  This led to software
developers from CDC and LLNL merging the IPMI software developed by
both organizations into FreeIPMI.

Anand Babu, Balamurugan and Ian Zimmerman at CDC contributed the
in-band KCS driver, ipmi-sensors, bmc-config, ipmi-sel, bmc-info, and
portions of libfreeipmi.  Albert Chu and Jim Garlick at LLNL
contributed ipmipower, bmc-watchdog, ipmiping, rmcpping, portions of
libfreeipmi, and ipmi support in Powerman.  In October 2004, FreeIPMI
0.1.0 was officially released.

Since the 0.1.0 release, Z Research developers have contributed
ipmi-chassis, ipmi-raw, ipmi-locate, and portions of ipmi-pef-config.
LLNL has contributed IPMI 2.0 support, hostrange support, ipmiconsole,
ipmimonitoring, ipmidetect, ipmi-sensors-config, ipmi-chassis-config,
bmc-device, ipmi-oem, ipmi-dcmi, and portions of ipmi-pef-config.

(Note: The original FreeIPMI developers from California Digital
Corp. are now at Zresearch Inc.)

@node What operating systems does FreeIPMI run on?, FreeIPMI vs OpenIPMI vs Ipmitool vs Ipmiutil, How did FreeIPMI start?, Top
@section What operating systems does FreeIPMI run on?

FreeIPMI was originally developed on GNU/Linux.  It has been confirmed
to be built on most major GNU/Linux distributions such as Redhat,
Fedora, Suse, and Debian.  FreeIPMI has been ported and confirmed to
work on atleast FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, OpenSolaris, and Windows
via Cygwin.  We imagine it would build cleanly on other operating
systems.  If it doesn't, it should be easily portable to them.

@node FreeIPMI vs OpenIPMI vs Ipmitool vs Ipmiutil, What is special about FreeIPMI, What operating systems does FreeIPMI run on?, Top
@section What are the differences between FreeIPMI, OpenIPMI, Ipmitool, and Ipmiutil? 
There are multiple implementations, APIs, interfaces, end user
requirements, etc. that one can choose when developing IPMI drivers,
libraries, and tools.  FreeIPMI has taken some different approaches
than other open-source projects.

The section below points out a number of the reasons why we feel
FreeIPMI is particularly special compared to the other projects.

The Ipmiutil project has a good chart describing many of the
differences between the projects:
@uref{http://ipmiutil.sourceforge.net/docs/ipmisw-compare.htm}.

@node What is special about FreeIPMI, Serial Over LAN (SOL) / Ipmiconsole Setup, FreeIPMI vs OpenIPMI vs Ipmitool vs Ipmiutil, Top
@section What is special about FreeIPMI compared to other open source IPMI projects?

In our eyes, there are several reasons why FreeIPMI is particularly special.

1) Support for HPC and large data centers

A number of features have been added into the tools to support HPC
and/or large data centers.  Much of this original support was added to
support the large cluster environments at Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory (LLNL).

Scalable parallel execution of many FreeIPMI tools (ipmi-sensors,
ipmi-sel, bmc-info, ipmimonitoring, etc.) across a cluster is
supported through hostranged input and output.  For example:

@example
# > bmc-info -h "pwopr[0-5]" -u XXX -p XXX --get-device-id -C
----------------
pwopr[0-1,5]
----------------
Device ID             : 34
Device Revision       : 1
Device SDRs           : unsupported
Firmware Revision     : 1.0c
Device Available      : yes (normal operation)
IPMI Version          : 2.0
Sensor Device         : supported
SDR Repository Device : supported
SEL Device            : supported
FRU Inventory Device  : supported
IPMB Event Receiver   : unsupported
IPMB Event Generator  : unsupported
Bridge                : unsupported
Chassis Device        : supported
Manufacturer ID       : Peppercon AG (10437)
Product ID            : 4
Auxiliary Firmware Revision Information : 38420000h
----------------
pwopr[2-4]
----------------
Device ID             : 34
Device Revision       : 1
Device SDRs           : unsupported
Firmware Revision     : 1.17
Device Available      : yes (normal operation)
IPMI Version          : 2.0
Sensor Device         : supported
SDR Repository Device : supported
SEL Device            : supported
FRU Inventory Device  : supported
IPMB Event Receiver   : unsupported
IPMB Event Generator  : unsupported
Bridge                : unsupported
Chassis Device        : supported
Manufacturer ID       : Peppercon AG (10437)
Product ID            : 4
Auxiliary Firmware Revision Information : 38420000h
@end example

In the above example, its clear to see that pwopr[2-4] have different
firmware than pwopr[0-1,5].  More information about hostrange support
can be found in the document freeipmi-hostrange.txt
(@uref{http://www.gnu.org/software/freeipmi/freeipmi-hostrange.txt}).

Ipmipower is capable of scaling to large nodes for cluster support and
is supported by Powerman
(@uref{http://sourceforge.net/projects/powerman}) for scalable power
management.  At LLNL, in conjunction with Powerman, ipmipower is used
for power control on clusters ranging from sizes of 4 to 2000.  It has
been used to determine power status or power control LLNL's largest
clusters in under a second.

Ipmiconsole is currently supported by Conman
(@uref{http://conman.googlecode.com/}) for scalable console management.

Ipmimonitoring interprets sensor readings as well as just reporting
them.  It can be used for host monitoring IPMI on a cluster.  By
mapping sensor readings into NOMINAL, WARNING, or CRITICAL states, it
makes monitoring sensors easier across large numbers of nodes.
Skummee
(@uref{http://sourceforge.net/projects/skummee}) currently uses
libipmimonitoring to monitoring sensors on LLNL clusters of up to 2000
nodes in size.  FreeIPMI sensor monitoring plugins
for Ganglia 
(@uref{http://ganglia.info/}) 
and Nagios 
(@uref{http://www.nagios.org/}) 
have also been developed and made available for download
(@uref{http://www.gnu.org/software/freeipmi/download.html}).

The bmc-config, ipmi-chassis-config, ipmi-pef-config,
ipmi-sensors-config, and configuration file and command-line interface
are used to easily copy the BMC configuration from one node to every
other node in a cluster quickly.  It has been used to modify the BMC
configuration across large LLNL clusters in a few minutes.  They also
have the capability to verify (via the diff option) that the desired
configuration has been properly stored to firmware.

Ipmidetect can be used to enhance the efficiency of the hostranged
input by eliminating those nodes in the cluster that have been
temporarily removed for servicing.

2) Additional OEM support

FreeIPMI contains support for a number of OEM extensions and OEM
sensors and/or events.  Ipmi-oem currently supports OEM command
extensions from Dell, Fujitsu, IBM, Intel, Inventec, Quanta, Sun
Microsystems, and Supermicro.  Ipmi-sensors and Ipmi-sel support OEM
sensors and/or events from Dell, Intel, Inventec, Quanta, Sun
Microsystems, and Supermicro.

3) Additional flexibility and features

By implementing various IPMI sub-sections into multiple tools, each
tool is capable of providing the user with more flexibility and
ultimately more features in addition to those listed above.  It may
not be as easy (or architecturally possible) to do in an all-in-one
tool.  

4) Extra IPMI support

In addition to the features listed above, FreeIPMI also supports the
Data Center Management Interface, or DCMI, via the FreeIPMI tool
ipmi-dcmi.

5) Easy setup

By implementing drivers in userspace libraries, there is no need to
build/setup/manage any kernel modules/drivers.

6) Portability

Likewise, by implementing everything in userspace libraries and tools,
portability to multiple operating systems and architectures should be
easier.

@node Serial Over LAN (SOL) / Ipmiconsole Setup, SSIF Driver Configuration, What is special about FreeIPMI, Top
@section What setup is needed for Serial over LAN (SOL) or Ipmiconsole

The setup of Serial-over-LAN (SOL) and/or Ipmiconsole is highly dependent on your motherboard.  However, most motherboards
require the following:

1) Adjust the BIOS COM port for serial redirection over SOL instead of
the normal serial port and set the appropriate baud rate.  If you do
not know which port is the SOL port, you may need to play around and
guess.  It is likely a non-default setting, since many manufacturers
may still assume the default redirection is out of the normal serial
port.  If you do not have a serial port on your motherboard, this part
can probably be skipped.

2) Configure IPMI on the motherboard to use SOL.  Many motherboards
may have this enabled by default, however you may wish to verify with
FreeIPMI's bmc-config.  More information can be found in the
bmc-config.conf(5) manpage on the settings.  However, the key settings
are to enable SOL on the system, enable SOL for individual users, and
select the appropriate baud.  On many motherboards, the selected baud
must match what is configured in the BIOS.

3) Adjust your operating systems serial console settings to use the
appropriate COM port.  For Linux, the following guide
(@uref{http://www.vanemery.com/Linux/Serial/serial-console.html})
provides a pretty good overview of setting of a serial console on
Linux.  The only difference for setting up a serial console with
Ipmiconsole or SOL, is the ttySX terminal may need to be changed.

@node SSIF Driver Configuration, x86-64 Compilation, Serial Over LAN (SOL) / Ipmiconsole Setup, Top
@section SSIF Driver Configuration

FreeIPMI's SSIF driver works on top of kernel'2 i2c device
interface.

Under GNU/Linux load these kernel modules: i2c-dev, i2c-i801, i2c-core
before using FreeIPMI.

To identify SSIF device address: 

Example:
@example
$> lspci  (in the output look for this entry)
 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 6300ESB SMBus Controller (rev 01)
       Subsystem: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 342f
       Flags: medium devsel,  IRQ 17
       I/O ports at 0400 [size=32]
                    ----
$> cat /proc/bus/i2c
i2c-0   smbus    SMBus I801 adapter at 0400         Non-I2C SMBus adapter
                                       ----
    Make sure the "0400" above matches with the "0400" address under
    proc.  Also make sure "i2c-0" is not different. If it appears
    different then grep for "i2c-0" in this code "ipmitool.c" and
    change. "i2c-X" is the label assigned to each slave device attached on
    the i2c bus.

BMC address Locator:
    Refer to the SM BIOS IPMI Device Information Record
    Type 38,  record 06h and 08h. Use the value of record
    06h as the IPMBAddress and load the SMBus controller
    driver at the address value read from record 08h.

    Usual values for record 06h -> 0x42
    Usual values for record 08h -> 0x400
@end example

@node x86-64 Compilation, libgcrypt requirement, SSIF Driver Configuration, Top
@section x86-64 Compilation

By default, FreeIPMI's build autotools (e.g. configure) should detect
if you are on a 64 bit system and should build against 64 bit
libraries.  However, some multi-architecture installs (e.g. you have
32 bit and 64 bit libraries installed) may lead to builds and installs
of 32 bit instead of 64 bit.  For those noticing this, pass libdir
appropriately to the configure script to workaround this
problem. (e.g. --libdir=/usr/lib64)

Example:
@example
  # ./configure  --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib64
@end example

@node libgcrypt requirement, Installing FreeIPMI on FreeBSD, x86-64 Compilation, Top
@section libgcrypt requirement

FreeIPMI requires the libgcrypt library to be installed for a variety
of encryption requirements in IPMI 2.0.  If you are building FreeIPMI
and receive a 'libgcrypt required to build libfreeipmi' error, please
install libgcrypt.  For Linux users, this may require the install of
the libgcrypt-devel package as well.  For those who do not need IPMI
2.0 encryption, FreeIPMI may be built without it by specifying
--without-encryption when executing configure.

@node Installing FreeIPMI on FreeBSD, , libgcrypt requirement, Top
@section Installing FreeIPMI on FreeBSD

You can install a binary package of freeipmi or use the port,
located in ports/sysutils/freeipmi, to build it from the source. See
ports(7) and 'Packages and Ports' section
(@uref{http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports.html})
in The FreeBSD Handbook.

Please contact port maintainer (MAINTAINER line in the port's Makefile),
if you have problems building from the port.

@bye
