On Thu, May 03, 2007 at 03:01:29PM -0400, Ward Vandewege wrote: > > Thanks for the pointer! However, the paper suggests that an extra > > controller/processor is needed for IPMI. Do we have such a thing > > on recent x86 mainboards? > > Some do. It's usually an optional component for server boards. > > I have had fairly extensive dealing with IPMI on Supermicro and Tyan boards, > and to be honest, these things are pathetic. There are IPMI 'standards' (v1, > v1.5, v2), which never seem to be implemented properly. In my experience, the > IPMI cards lock up, crash, become unresponsive, and are so poorly implemented > that they often require the use of - even buggier - proprietary tools to even > talk to the things; the free software ipmitool is a great piece of software, > but it's hard having to work around IPMI implemenations that are broken in > undocumented and unpredictable ways. Hence, getting ipmitool to work with a > particular IPMI card is very much a game of hit and miss. > > And don't get me started on IPMI cards sharing physical network connections > with the mainboard - in some implementations they piggyback on the onboard > ethernet controller and just pick up whatever traffic they need from the > wire, whereas on other boards they actually have a separate ethernet > controller on the same socket (!). Of course one can configure the mac and ip > address for the IPMI card in *all* the implementations I've seen, leading to > interesting situations where sometimes the mac address for the IPMI card > *has* to be the same as the one for the onboard ethernet interface, and > sometimes it *may not* be the same. > > Best of all - the whole point of IPMI is out of band management of machines. > Get this: I've seen machines crash *and take the IPMI daughterboard with > them*. IPMI daugtherboards obviously rely on some parts of the host system to > remain in a non-locked up state, which kind of goes against the whole point > of having IPMI in the first place... > > On paper, IPMI is a great idea. The implementations I've seen suck royally. > Proprietary software...
This text looks suspiciously well-suited for the wiki, hint hint ;) Uwe. -- http://www.hermann-uwe.de | http://www.holsham-traders.de http://www.crazy-hacks.org | http://www.unmaintained-free-software.org
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