On Tuesday 10 February 2009, Timothy Murphy wrote:
Peter Kjellstrom wrote:
However, with or without /dev/ipmi0 you can access the BMC remotely with (assuming you have an IP configured etc.).
I'd never heard of BMC (I am not an expert in this area, to put it mildly)
BMC, on-board baseboard management controller, IPMI-controller, service processor, ...
The piece of hardware that runs independently from the main part of the server and that typically does things like:
* keep the SEL * perform power controll * monitor temperatures and fan speeds * provide serial port over LAN functionality
but on googling for "dell bmc" I found http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/power/ps1q05-20040219-Brumley.pdf where I learnt that "The on-board baseboard management controller (BMC) is a powerful and flexible device that can be used to effectively manage eighth-generation Dell servers such as the PowerEdge 1850, PowerEdge 2800, and PowerEdge 2850."
This suggests to me that my modest PowerEdge T105 probably does not support this service.
Googling a bit it does seem that the T105 lacks a BMC :-(
Earlier cheap servers from dell (sc1435 for example) did have it...
How would I access it if it were available? I see a large number of BMC-related ports in /etc/services , but none of them seem to be active on my server.
The BMC is independent from the OS, think a small separate server inside your real server.
If a server has one you access it in one of the following ways:
* service ipmi start, local access (requires OpenIPMI kernel driver support) * via LAN to a dedicated management ethernet port on the server * via LAN to a shared ethernet port on the server
The LAN access way depends on the BMC having a connection to an ethernet port and a working TCP/IP configuration.
/Peter