Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI)
on and AMD Opteron Servers

Can I use an Open Source IPMI Application to communicate with my Server 'out of the box' without the need to install any graphical client Applications?

Yes, absolutely.

If you have a workstation with an Operating System such as FreeBSD or a distribution of Linux, you can install ipmitool which is an Open Source Application without having to purchase extra modules. Keep in mind the standard BMC has a small amount of space to hold the logs which an IPMI application will read.

The following are results of a query to the sel log using ipmitool on an 1164 AMD Opteron Server

~> ipmitool -H 192.168.0.158 sel list
Password:
1 | 03/16/2006 | 13:09:05 | System Firmware Progress #0xfe | System boot initiated | Asserted
2 | 03/16/2006 | 13:11:28 | System Firmware Progress #0xfe | System boot initiated | Asserted
3 | 03/16/2006 | 13:15:17 | System Firmware Progress #0xfe | System boot initiated | Asserted
4 | 03/16/2006 | 13:20:54 | System Firmware Progress #0xfe | System boot initiated | Asserted
5 | 03/16/2006 | 13:22:06 | System Firmware Progress #0xfe | System boot initiated | Asserted
6 | 03/16/2006 | 13:31:36 | System Firmware Progress #0xfe | System boot initiated | Asserted

The above means that there are no hardware problems and that the Server was booted 6 times since the last clearing of the SEL log.

Q. Why do I need IPMI to work?

A. If you suspect a hardware problem, an ipmi application can provide you with information that can resolve the issue very quickly without spending hours of needless troubleshooting.

Q. Will our new Servers require any extra modules or cards to be installed in order to use lights out remote management?

A. Our AMD Opteron Servers are built t with every available IPMI feature by default. No extra PCI cards are required.

Q. Can an Server send out automatic email for reboots or hardware events?

A. Yes

Q. Can I use a web browser such as FireFox or Mozilla to access all the management on the Server

A. Yes, look below.

The screen shots below of the built-in web based remote hardware management were taken from the iNET1164 (1U Dual Processor)

The certificate above is self-signed, FireFox shows the warning. You can create your own certificate or buy a signed certificate and load it into the built-in web server.

The above screenshot shows all manageable components in blue. Each blue device is a clickable link to a status report for that component.

Above: By clicking on a link on the management window in the web browser (we used FireFox under FreeBSD for this) you can begin an ssh to the management module and run commands from there. The management module has its own NIC and IP and is not accessible from the OS or vice versa.

If you were to have a component fail, getting the serial number for any listed component(s) is fast and easy as shown above.

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