Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.eu.org> writes:

> However most vendors now seems to support the IPMI standard. Is use a custom
> UDP protocol, but maybe some boards also support telnet or ssh connectivity ?
> Also, I'm not sure the console is seen as a serial port on the system side
> (I've seen mails suggesting some supermicro IPMI boards would be snooping
> the video memory for characters, slowing down the whole system).
>
> Has anyone experience with IPMI boards (from any vendors) ?

I've seen IPMI implementations from Dell, Supermicro and Intel (on
some of their server boards). They have been underwhelming. They all
share one of the main Ethernet ports, which is a pain network
architecture-wise and reliablity-wise. I've seen them used (or tried)
with Linux and Windows 200x Server.

My memory is a bit hazy on this stuff, but on the Dell power on/off
(with Dell-supplied IPMI tools) worked most of the time, provided you
didn't do anything too complicated with the shared NIC's address or
state. Console redirection worked some of the time, though unreliably,
failing on some identical machines while working on others. Serial
port initialization by the OS would often confuse it (it intercepts
one of the system serial ports).

The Intel integrated IPMI (which required booting off a CD with a GUI to
configure addresses and other fun stuff) might work for power on/off under
lab conditions, but forget its IP or other configuration after being
powered down for a while. Serial console might not have worked at all.
These were completely useless.

Supermicro's functionality was somewhere in between the two.

As none of this stuff was found to be exactly production quality, resulting
in much gnashing of teeth, we don't use IPMI at work if we can avoid it at all.

I don't really know about Sun's PC-LOM. We have a customer who has one
of those, I think it works now though they had some initial problems
getting bootloader and kernel output to go there (grub/debian, I
think).

Dell's Remote Access Controller (the latest generation at least) cards
are fairly usable, though not supported in the cheapo-est servers
(ie. SC1425 and friends; 1850, 2850 and friends are supported). The
telnetable console is somewhat flaky, so you'd better have a (Sun)
Java-equipped browser somewhere within easy network reach of the
machines (ie. ssh tunneling for the java console?  Forget it). The
Java console supports graphics. The virtual floppy/CD functionality
also works, but requires a browser plug-in. There's a Linux .so if you
dig enough (functionality unknown) and one for Windows (works).

We also have one PC Weasel card, which has worked quite well in an hp
lp1000r (old dual P3 1U box). Unfortunately, the lack of Ethernet and a
high-ish price are a problem there. The hack aspect is also a bit
scary, ie. will it work on all current/future motherboards.

Unfortunately, the bottom line seems to be that in terms of
functionality, integration and reliability, a 1999-vintage Netra
t1 LOM is still far ahead of the best PC offerings up to 2006
that I've seen (well, except for the serial-port-only part).

 -valtteri