SuperMicro IPMI/SOL and ipmitool troubles

[Steven Hartland]

On 11/11/2014 18:10, Dmitry Morozovsky wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Nov 2014, Steven Hartland wrote:
>
>>> I'm trying to set up sol console for supermicro servers, reading some
>>> documents
>>> including TestClusterOne, mainly:
>>>
>>>> For serial redirection to work, in the BIOS you need to redirect to com
>>>> port
>>>> B and in /boot/device.hints you need hint.uart.1.flags="0x10" and enable
>>>> getty on
>>>> cuau1
>>> I can see BIOS screen ok; boot1/2 and boot/loader work fine also.  However,
>>> I
>>> could not see kernel console output via SOL, neither getty on ttyu1 works.
>>> I tried different speeds, std vs 3wire, explicitely set console=comconsole
>>> vidconsole -- no luck.
>>>
>>> I even trued to use `ipmitool sol activate' on one side and `tip -115200
>>> com2'
>>> on the other -- stiil no data between.
>>>
>>> Any hints?
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>> For the reference:
>>>
>>> marck at centipede:~> ipmitool -H mc26.int -U root -I lanplus sol info
>>> Password:
>>> Set in progress                 : set-complete
>>> Enabled                         : true
>>> Force Encryption                : false
>>> Force Authentication            : false
>>> Privilege Level                 : USER
>>> Character Accumulate Level (ms) : 0
>>> Character Send Threshold        : 0
>>> Retry Count                     : 0
>>> Retry Interval (ms)             : 0
>>> Volatile Bit Rate (kbps)        : 115.2
>>> Non-Volatile Bit Rate (kbps)    : 115.2
>>> Payload Channel                 : 1 (0x01)
>>> Payload Port                    : 623
>>>
>> This is what we use:
>> http://blog.multiplay.co.uk/2012/12/freebsd-serial-over-lan/
> Hm. Does not seem to work for me, for 10.1: I set all the values at loader
> prompt, issue `boot -s' -- and then, last loader line (kernel load process)
> goes to both java KVM and sol, and then kernel messages only to KVM, and
> finally prompt for single user shell -- nowhere :(
Just updated a Dell box to 10.1-RC4 and a Supermicro box on head and 
they both work for me.

With the Supermicro box I did have to ensure the BIOS console and BMC 
agreed on the com settings including disabling the serial ports (not the 
console redirect). Without this the BIOS was using 115.2 but the BMC was 
using 19.2. Fixing the speeds showed the loader but nothing else, 
disabling the com ports and resetting the IPMI device allowed full 
booted support.

If you have an old SIM you might want to try forcing usb to low speed as 
the old Supermicro IPMI modules advertise USB 2.0 but only work reliably 
at 1.0 speeds. To do this add the following to /boot/loader.conf with 
the rest of the settings mentioned in that blog post:
hw.usb.ehci.no_hs="1"

Signs that this is required is USB devices which fail to negotiate on 
boot of the machine.

Hope this helps.

     Regards
     Steve