[freebsd-questions] Questions about monitoring Dell servers

[Jason Lixfeld]

On 17-May-06, at 12:05 PM, Howard Jones wrote:

> Jason Lixfeld wrote:
>> Well, I managed to sort it out.  The grey area was that the Dell  
>> BMC just needed an IP, username and password configured on it.  I  
>> was under the mistaken impression that the OpenIPMI needed to be  
>> installed to speak the BMC, but ipmitools does that just fine.   
>> Between the BMC and megarc for the raid status, I have everything  
>> I need!  Well, with the exception of SNMP traps -- still haven't  
>> figured out how to set the trap host and community, but if worst  
>> comes to worst, I can use used net-snmp and use the exec options  
>> in snmpd.conf.
>>
> Where does this IP address present itself? On an SC1425 we have  
> here, I can set an IP etc in the BMC BIOS, but it lists a MAC  
> address there that isn't the same as either of the GigE interfaces  
> on the mobo.
>
> Is it overlaid in some strange way, or do I need some sort of  
> daughterboard? I'd like to get this going for all our Dells if I can.

The MAC address on the BMC is different on my 1850s as well.  You  
don't need any daughterboard, it just runs off the onboard NIC and  
you can even hit it when the power is off on the machine (slick!!).

You don't need to configure or compile anything in userland on the  
system at all, just install ipmitool and you're off to the races:

 From what I understand, you can't do anything to the IP on the BMC  
except hit it with something like ipmitool:

# ipmitool -I lan -H 192.168.100.100 -U root channel info
Password:
Channel 0x1 info:
   Channel Medium Type   : 802.3 LAN
   Channel Protocol Type : IPMB-1.0
   Session Support       : session-based
   Active Session Count  : 1
   Protocol Vendor ID    : 7154
   Volatile(active) Settings
     Alerting            : disabled
     Per-message Auth    : disabled
     User Level Auth     : enabled
     Access Mode         : always available
   Non-Volatile Settings
     Alerting            : disabled
     Per-message Auth    : disabled
     User Level Auth     : enabled
     Access Mode         : always available
#

> Cheers,
>
> Howie
>