Re: [Ipmitool-devel] Clearing the "Event Logging Disabled" state...

[Duncan L. <du...@ic...>]

On Thu, 2006-06-01 at 15:53 -0400, Fred Skrotzki wrote:
> Ok I've done a bunch of digging and can't seem to find a good answer.
> 
> Using version 1.8.7 built from the source tarball.
> First off working on a Dell 1425SC.  The system had memory error issues
> which we fixed.  So I went and cleared the event logs as that problem is
> now gone.  Did this by ipmitool -I lan -u .... sel clear command
> When this is done and I do a "sel list" command I get the following back
> in the log:
>    1 | 06/01/2006 | 13:52:02 | Event Logging Disabled #0x51 | Log area
> reset/cleared | Asserted
> 


This is a misnomer in the IPMI spec that is not really made clear by
ipmitool.  The "Event Logging Disabled" in this instance is a sensor
type which corresponds to sensor number 0x51.  Often this is a sensor
that is not tied to any physical entity but is just used to report the
state of the SEL itself.  In this case since the event itself is "Log
area reset/cleared" and not that the logging was actually disabled.  I
don't think there is anything to worry about because I should not have
actually disabled event logging--just cleared the existing log.

It is probably not possible in this implementation to end up with a
completely empty SEL; it will always have this one log entry when you do
a sel clear.  This is often an intentional design decision so someone
does not see a completely empty SEL and wonder how it got that way.

You can test event logging with the "event" command where you give it a
sensor ID and a potential event and it should record it in the SEL.  For
instance if you had a temperature sensor named "CPU0 Temp" you could use
this command to simulate an Upper Critical temperature event:

        event "CPU0 Temp" ucr


> 
> Now guessing maybe it's confused I figured I'll disable then enable it
> clearing it that way and got the following
> bmc setenables system_event_log=off
> Disabling System Event Logging
> Set Global Enables command failed: Invalid command
> 


I suspect event logging is not actually able to be disabled.  This is
common as often the SEL and its event logging mechanisms are ingrained
in the service processor software and are not easily completely
disabled.


> Do another sel clear followed by sel list and I still get it reported
> that event logging is disabled.
> 
> I've even done a bmc reset warm & cold, followed by a sel clear and
> still get that it is disabled.
> 
> Now for the questions... 
> 
> 1. why the error for setting system_event_log=off is it is ipmitool
> error or Dell handling error?  (I don't know how to tell but will gladly
> test if told how).
> 

It is the Dell reporting that error, but I don't think it is a huge
concern because it probably just means you cannot turn of logging to the
SEL.

> 2. I just noticed that all systems that have never had a error say that
> event logging is disabled am I reading the message wrong?  Does it
> really mean that logging was disabled, then it cleared/reset the log
> then asserted that it has enabled the logging again?  (Yes it is
> possible that I'm being slow and dumb today).
> 

See the above statements, this is a confusing message because it is
grouped under an inappropriate sensor type.  However within IPMI there
is no more appropriate sensor type so it is really just correct, but
confusing. :)


> 3. Also noted that the following command also has a problem sel delete x
> where s is a number of a valid message.  I get back "Unable to delete
> entry 1: Invalid command"  Same issue as above that the command is good
> but Dell does not process it correctly?
> 
> 

Deletion of individual SEL records is an optional feature with IPMI and
is not often supported due to the nature of some logging facilities.
Depending on how the SEL is actually implemented it may be painful to
remove a single entry from within a large SEL.  So this is a normal
error and nothing to be concerned about.

-duncan