This is freeipmi-faq.info, produced by makeinfo version 4.8 from
freeipmi-faq.texi.

   This manual is for FreeIPMI (version 0.8.7, 10 June 2010).
Copyright (C) 2006-2010 FreeIPMI Core Team

     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.

INFO-DIR-SECTION Platform Management
START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* FreeIPMI FAQ: (freeipmi-faq).  FreeIPMI - Frequently Asked Questions
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY

   Copyright (C) 2003-2010 FreeIPMI Core Team.


File: freeipmi-faq.info,  Node: Top,  Next: What is IPMI,  Prev: (dir),  Up: (dir)

   Frequently Asked Questions on *FreeIPMI*

   This edition of the documentation was last updated on 16 June 2010
for release 0.8.7 of the FreeIPMI.

* 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::
* SSIF Driver Configuration::
* x86-64 Compilation::
* Installing FreeIPMI on FreeBSD::


File: freeipmi-faq.info,  Node: What is IPMI,  Next: What is FreeIPMI?,  Prev: Top,  Up: Top

0.1 IPMI - Platform Management Standard
=======================================

The IPMI specifications define standardized, abstracted interfaces to
the platform management subsystem.  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.


File: freeipmi-faq.info,  Node: What is FreeIPMI?,  Next: How did FreeIPMI start?,  Prev: What is IPMI,  Up: Top

0.2 What is FreeIPMI?
=====================

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


File: freeipmi-faq.info,  Node: How did FreeIPMI start?,  Next: What operating systems does FreeIPMI run on?,  Prev: What is FreeIPMI?,  Up: Top

0.3 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.)


File: freeipmi-faq.info,  Node: What operating systems does FreeIPMI run on?,  Next: FreeIPMI vs OpenIPMI vs Ipmitool vs Ipmiutil,  Prev: How did FreeIPMI start?,  Up: Top

0.4 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 GNU/Linux
distributions and Unix operating systems.  If it doesn't, it should be
easily portable to them.


File: freeipmi-faq.info,  Node: FreeIPMI vs OpenIPMI vs Ipmitool vs Ipmiutil,  Next: What is special about FreeIPMI,  Prev: What operating systems does FreeIPMI run on?,  Up: Top

0.5 What is the relationship 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.


File: freeipmi-faq.info,  Node: What is special about FreeIPMI,  Next: SSIF Driver Configuration,  Prev: FreeIPMI vs OpenIPMI vs Ipmitool vs Ipmiutil,  Up: Top

0.6 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

   A number of HPC aspects have been added to the tools and/or are
supported by other HPC software due to the need for FreeIPMI to work on
LLNL's GNU/Linux clusters.

   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:

     # > 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

   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.

   Ipmipower is capable of scaling to large nodes for cluster support
and is supported by Powerman
(`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 1152.  It is
capable of power controlling all of the nodes in the largest clusters
in under a second.

   Ipmiconsole is currently supported by Conman
(`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
(`http://sourceforge.net/projects/skummee') uses libipmimonitoring on
LLNL clusters up to 1152 nodes in size.  FreeIPMI monitoring plugins
for Ganglia (`http://ganglia.info/') and Nagios
(`http://www.nagios.org/') have also been developed and made available
for download (`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, Inventec, Sun Microsystems, and
Supermicro.  Ipmi-sensors and Ipmi-sel support OEM sensors and/or
events from Dell, Inventec, 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 a all-in-one tool.

   4) Easy setup

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

   5) Portability

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


File: freeipmi-faq.info,  Node: SSIF Driver Configuration,  Next: x86-64 Compilation,  Prev: What is special about FreeIPMI,  Up: Top

0.7 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:
     $> 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


File: freeipmi-faq.info,  Node: x86-64 Compilation,  Next: Installing FreeIPMI on FreeBSD,  Prev: SSIF Driver Configuration,  Up: Top

0.8 x86-64 Compilation
======================

Under some x86-64 platforms, native 64 bit libraries reside under lib64
and 32 bit libs under lib. Autotools by default installs libfreeipmi.so
under /usr/lib, instead of /usr/lib64 causing dynamic linking errors.
Pass libdir appropriately to configure script to workaround this
problem. (e.g. -libdir=/usr/lib64)

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


File: freeipmi-faq.info,  Node: Installing FreeIPMI on FreeBSD,  Prev: x86-64 Compilation,  Up: Top

0.9 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
(`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.



Tag Table:
Node: Top690
Node: What is IPMI1225
Node: What is FreeIPMI?2414
Node: How did FreeIPMI start?2822
Node: What operating systems does FreeIPMI run on?4139
Node: FreeIPMI vs OpenIPMI vs Ipmitool vs Ipmiutil4850
Node: What is special about FreeIPMI5429
Node: SSIF Driver Configuration10684
Node: x86-64 Compilation12223
Node: Installing FreeIPMI on FreeBSD12791

End Tag Table
