SuperMicro IPMI/SOL and ipmitool troubles

[Andreas Nilsson]

On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 7:30 PM, Dmitry Morozovsky <marck at rinet.ru> wrote:

> Daniel,
>
> nice to see you here too ;)
>
> On Fri, 14 Nov 2014, Daniel O'Connor wrote:
>
> >
> > On 12 Nov 2014, at 19:43, Andreas Nilsson <andrnils at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > unclear is the word for it :) And thanks for looking into this.
> ipmi/ilo is
> > > important on a server os.
> > >
> > > I found a reference to it in a ML post:
> > >
> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2013-February/072464.html
> >
> > I started that thread :)
> > I did get it working on the hardware I was using (Supermicro X9SCL-F and
> X8SIL-F)
> >
> > I used the following BIOS settings
> >       ? Remote Access - Enabled
> >       ? Serial Port Number - COM3
> >       ? Serial Port Mode - 115200, 8, n, 1
> >       ? Flow Control - Hardware
> >       ? Redirection After BIOS POST - Always
> >       ? Terminal Type - VT100
> >       ? VT-UTF8 Combo Key Support - Disabled
> >       ? Sredir Memory Display Delay - No Delay
> >
> > And the following in loader.conf
> > # Give preference to VGA console
> > console="vidconsole,comconsole"
> > # Uncomment below and comment above to give serial console preference
> > #console="comconsole,vidconsole"
> > comconsole_speed="115200"
> > boot_multicons="YES"
> > hint.uart.0.flags="0x0"
> > hint.uart.2.at="isa"
> > hint.uart.2.port="0x3E8"
> > hint.uart.2.flags="0x30"
> >
> > And this in /etc/ttys
> > # IPMI console
> > # Note: The Java console viewer doesn't seem to be very smart as it
> doesn't
> > # properly support VT100
> > cuau2   "/usr/libexec/getty 3wire.115200"       vt100   on secure
> >
> > I could then access it using ipmitool like so
> > ipmitool -H remoteip -U ADMIN -I lanplus sol activate
> > [login]
> > export TERM=xterm
> >
> > Note that I wanted vidconsole by default because mostly the systems were
> used by people local to them, however we could break into the loader and
> type 'set console=comconsole,vidconsole? and then get everything over the
> serial console for remote trouble shooting.
> >
> > You may also wish to check the IPMI configuration via the web interface
> - by default it will failover to port 0 and it has terrible default
> passwords. I changed the passwords and forced it to use the dedicated IPMI
> port even if nothing was connected to it.
>
> Well, I'm almost done with most of our SM server, even concentrated
> console on
> our console server with such a simple config:
>
> ---- 8< ----
> # ipmi/sol console template
> default ipmi {
>         master  localhost;
>         type    exec;
>         exec    /usr/local/bin/ipmitool -f /usr/local/etc/ipmi-pass -U
> root -I lanplus -H %.int sol activate;
>         execsubst       %=cs;
>         #idletimeout    6h;
>
>         break 0 { string "~B"; }
> }
>
> console gwn1    { include ipmi; }
> console gwn2    { include ipmi; }
> console gwn3    { include ipmi; }
> console gwn4    { include ipmi; }
> console gwn5    { include ipmi; }
> console gwn6    { include ipmi; }
> console gwn7    { include ipmi; }
> console gwn8    { include ipmi; }
>
> console gwc2    { include ipmi; }
> ---- 8< ----
>
> This has console logging (including possible panics) as a surplus
>
> --
> Sincerely,
> D.Marck                                     [DM5020, MCK-RIPE, DM3-RIPN]
> [ FreeBSD committer:                                 marck at FreeBSD.org ]
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *** Dmitry Morozovsky --- D.Marck --- Wild Woozle --- marck at rinet.ru ***
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

Hello again,

Searching on hw.uart.console, I found:
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/svn-src-head/2013-February/044641.html ,
a very enlightening thread.

Basically: "ohh, you want to use something other than COM1 and tried to get
away with just changing hint.uart stuff, which has worked for a while, ha,
no way..." No heads up, nothing.

Sorry to say jhb@ but is not a rare case. It is if not the default, a very
common setup on every HP server with iLO, and it holds for most all OOB
style serial emulation I have ever had the (dis)pleasure of working with.

Best regards
Andreas