ipmi configuration

[antigona45]

Hi all,

I have added a Supermicro AOC SIMLP-3+ IPMI card (http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/sim.cfm) to a server currently running EXSi 4.1.

I'm not very familiar with EXSi and I have never configured an IPMI device on it. I can see that the link is up by doing a:

~ # esxcfg-nics -l
vmnic10 Up   100Mbps   Full   xx:xx:xx:xx:xx 1500   Intel Corporation 82541GI Gigabit Ethernet Controller
 

My problem is to configure the IPMI device, as I have no idea how to do this. How do I install the drivers? Do I need OpenIPMI? and How can I -through exsi terminal- setup an IP, NETMASK and Gateway for the IPMI device?

Any help will be greatly appreciated it, thanks a bunch.

[DSTAVERT]

An IPMI interface allows you to access the hardware underneath the OS. They often can gain access to onboard sensors to report things like temperature, fan speed, report on failures. I am not familiar with the Supermicro device but you can usually get access to the console, access the hardware BIOS screen during reboot, acknowledge errors like Press F1 to continue etc. You may be able to powercycle the Server, turn it off and on etc. Most often you can access them via SSH, by web browser or a manufacturer specific application.

I would consult the documentation to see what is available to you. You may not get any ESX(i) specific benefit without OEM CIM modules and I don't know that Supermicro supplies any.

[antigona45]

Thanks you, DSTAVERT. I have tried that with no avail, still looking onto different things. I do however have lots of experience installing and configuring IPMI devices under Linux and Windows systems. Never done it for EXSi

[DSTAVERT]

There isn't anything available for ESX(i) unless Supermicro has specifically created something for it.

[DSTAVERT]

Dell, HP, IBM, Fujitsu at least have their own ESXi install disks. Those disks contain CIM modules specifically created to communicate with the IPMI interface of their respective hardware. Without those specific CIM modules (would be something agents in Linux or Windows) you may get no extra monitoring benefits fro using the IPMI card.

[jsurles]

Hello,

Were you able to get this working yet?  We're getting ready to order this card for some of our SuperMicro boxes.  Our dive into it came when we were not seeing PS failures on remote servers (that's a bad thing :smileyhappy:).  I tried unsuccessfully to ascertain the PS status info from the servers without any additional hardware, but was unable to do so.

It looks like our best bet is going to be going with these cards.  I was hoping the addition of the card would allow ESX to see the IPMI data.. Once you get yours configured, I'm wondering if you're able to see this data in the ESX console.  Worst case scenario, the card itself should be able to send traps and/or email to preconfigured places.

It's my understanding that to set the cards up initially, you have to boot off of a CD, which will allow you to configure the IP address and such of the interface.  Once that's done, you just boot the server like normal, and make sure you have the managment interface connected to the network.  The card is supposed to make ascertaining this information completely OS dependent.  Ideally, you could take a machine that's turned off, power it up, mount an ISO, and put an OS on it without even having to be in the same state.  This makes me happy.

Let me know how your experience turned out.

Jim