Re: Problems with IPMI and wm? sharing a physical Ethernet port

[Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>]

On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 11:22:37AM -0400, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
> A warning!  We specified one of the NetBSD Foundation's own servers
> this way, only to discover that the very latest generation of IPMI
> (actually, Baseboard Management Controller, BMC) embedded on the newest
> SuperMicro Intel (not AMD, AFAIK) systems is not really suitable for use
> with NetBSD at all.
> 
> These systems have a separate Ethernet for IPMI which is provided by
> the BMC chip which also provides physical VGA and, during the boot
> process, serial console redirection.
> 
> Unfortunately, unlike most IPMI serial console redirection, this chip
> does not emulate the register-level serial port interface, only the
> BIOS calls.  So as soon as the NetBSD kernel starts, serial console
> output stops.
> 
> According to SuperMicro, the only supported means of console access once
> the OS boots is using the pseudo-VNC (port 5900, clearly derived from VNC,
> but won't talk to any open-source VNC client) VGA redirection also
> implemented by this BMC.  Unfortunately, the only client available for
> this protocol is "Java" with native methods signed by some random guy
> in China, and which won't run on NetBSD anyway.
> 
> SuperMicro certainly makes some nice stuff, but if you're considering
> using their IPMI-equipped systems with NetBSD -- make sure you don't get
> that platform!  Mmmmm, compromising your management systems with dangerous
> native code because the vendor didn't feel like properly implementing a
> serial port.  Stay far away, is my advice.

I've got a similar experience from supermicro. On a serie of servers
I got, I coudln't get serial over ipmi to work. I tried to talk to them
(and the reseller did too), but I couldn't convince them that a working
serial port is important (their reply invariably was "use the GUI, it's
better").

Recently I got amd opteron buldozer servers from them (A H8QG6 motherboard),
and on this one the IPMI serial is working. So maybe some cares about
this feature at supermicro anyway ...

I don't use this much anyway, because I use the serial consoles
connected to a concentrator ...

-- 
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>
     NetBSD: 26 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
--