IPMI and Dell ERA/O

[Jonathan Bond-Caron]

On Fri Aug 29 11:24 AM, John Baldwin wrote:
> 
> If your BIOS doesn't tell us about the IPMI BMC via ACPI or SMBIOS, 
> you can try using hints (I've seen machines thave a BMC, but the BIOS 
> doesn't bother to tell you about it).  Dell boxes I've seen have KCS 
> at the default address, so you can just do:
> 
> hint.ipmi.0.at=isa0
> hint.ipmi.0.mode=KCS
> 
> Either add that to /boot/device.hints or for a test just explicitly 
> set those variables at the loader prompt before booting.
> 

Thanks, that works! 

Although I don't really understand why? After some digging, I found this:
(man 4 ipmi)
BUGS
     Not all features of the MontaVista driver are supported.
     Currently, IPMB and BT modes are not implemented.


But the interface for the Dell 1750 with ERA/O seems to be BT. Luckily it
works enough for me with KCS (hint.ipmi.0.mode=KCS)
http://linux.dell.com/ipmi.shtml

I'm saying 'works enough' because some readings show as 'disabled', I'm not
sure if that's because the interface is not BT or the supported IPMI version
is 1.0 (on the BMC):  

[root at home /home/jbondc]# ipmitool -I open sdr                 
CPU 1            | disabled          | ns
CPU 2            | disabled          | ns
CPU 3            | disabled          | ns
CPU 4            | disabled          | ns
CPU Planar       | 35 degrees C      | ok
Ambient          | 27 degrees C      | ok
CPU              | 1.48 Volts        | ok
CPU 2            | disabled          | ns
CPU 3            | disabled          | ns
CPU 4            | disabled          | ns
+5               | 5.05 Volts        | ok
+12              | 11.97 Volts       | ok
+3.3             | 3.29 Volts        | ok
Battery          | 3.06 Volts        | ok
+2.5             | 2.55 Volts        | ok
NIC +2.5         | disabled          | ns
NIC +1.8         | disabled          | ns
MemCard A +2.5   | disabled          | ns
MemCard B +2.5   | disabled          | ns
MemCard A +1.25  | disabled          | ns
MemCard B +1.25  | disabled          | ns
Cover Intrusion  | 0x00              | ok
Fan Control      | 0x17              | ok
Fan 1            | 6240 RPM          | ok
Fan 2            | 6120 RPM          | ok
...

I've created a wiki entry for IPMI at:
http://www.freebsdwiki.net/index.php/IPMI

I will maintain that page as I learn more about IMPI and FreeBSD.