Michal Bachorik - Sun Microsystems - Prague Czech Republic wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> sorry for delay. See answers below.
>>>>> Also is there any impact to having these freeimpi daemons running
>>>>> given Solaris already has FMA ?
>>>>>
>>>> FMA is about a local machine auto-recovery while freeipmi is able
>>>> to watch IPMI events from remote machines and perform for example:
>>>> - power-cycle remotely if needed.
>>>> - shut down/startup machine if needed
>>>>
>>> I don't think the question here was answered... what is the impact
>>> on local FMA on a machine using freeipmi? Can freeipmi be used to
>>> monitor a local machine and notify FMA? Is it necessarily true
>>> that there is no overlap between these subsystems?
>>>
> I am not FMA expert, but from what I know, FMA does not rely on
> service processor feature but on device drivers and OS features. On
> other hand, freeipmi (as a set of IPMI client tools) relies only on a
> service processor feature (and only on a service processor that
> supports IPMI 1.5/2.0, and not ELOM, ILOM etc.).
>
> Freeipmi CAN monitor local machine, if local machine HAS service
> processor feature. In current state, freeipmi is not able to notify
> FMA but if that would be needed, it could be done (s new feature). If
> local machines does NOT have service processor supporting IPMI, then
> freeipmi can NOT notify FMA.
>
> I think that there is NO overlap between freeipmi and FMA - first,
> freeipmi does not automatically switch monitoring services on, and
> even if it is switched on, it has to be defined what actions has to be
> performed under which circumstances.
Okay, it seems like for now, there isn't direct overlap unless the admin
configures it. I believe there is potential for future interactions,
though -- see below.
>>
>> Most importantly: is there any negative impact on FMA?
>>
> I do not understand the question - if you configure the freeipmi in a
> way, that it watches remote machine and performs shutdown when CPU
> temperature reaches 60oC while FMA is configured in a way (I do not
> know if it is possible, just guessing) that it has to switch off the
> machine when CPU temperature reaches 60oC and freeipmi is faster then
> FMA (so it reboots the machine sooner, then FMA is able to perform
> shutdown), then YES, it can have negative impact.
>
> But in such sense, anything can have negative impact on FMA - for me,
> it is the administrator's responsibility to configure the machine in a
> way that it works reliable. It is important, that by default (after
> installation) freeimpi does NOTHING. it has to be configured to DO
> something.
OK. But in the situation you describe, FMA's fault handling might allow
for a different handling -- e.g. turning fans up to full speed, or
throttling back a CPU or even disabling one or more cores (or the whole
CPU if multiple CPUs are present) -- which is better IMO than a blind
shut down.
>> But also, FMA and SMF both seem to allow for the possibility of a
>> networked future in that FMRIs are practically URIs. So maybe it's time
>> to fund a project to make that happen? (That could be advice by the ARC
>> to the PAC.)
>>
>
> I do not understand this - does it touch freeipmi ARC somehow?
The comments don't apply directly to you, except that perhaps we need to
figure out in the future how to enable FMA to interact with IPMI or
other service processor architectures. The advice would be something
ARC would supply -- and not require any action on your part (at this time).
On another front, I still don't think I've seen an answer to my
questions about FreeIPMI & ipmitool interactions.
Can they coexist? What are the interactions, if any? What is the
justification for having a different tool than ipmitool? (You indicated
that you'd done some analysis and chosen FreeIPMI, but no explanation
was given about *why* this choice was made.) Is this just about Linux
familiarity?
Also, I'll repeat this question (although its really a C-Team issue and
not an ARC one): IPMI specs seem to require signing an "Adopters
agreement for IPMI" from Intel. Has anyone checked to see if freeipmi
has followed the necessary steps so our legal bases are covered for
integrating it?
- Garrett
>
> Regards,
>
> Michal
>> Nico
>>
>
