#59 Request for Guidance on Testing IPMIutil with a Simulated BMC Server

[Sangeetha Elumalai]

I am currently in need of assistance with conducting tests involving IPMIutil, particularly in conjunction with a simulated BMC server such as IPMISIM or an equivalent solution.
My system setup is relatively basic, and I do not have access to a physical IPMI server on my machine.

I would greatly appreciate it if you could provide guidance or information on how I can effectively set up and perform testing using IPMIutil and a simulated BMC server.
Any insights or recommendations you can offer regarding alternative solutions or methods for achieving this objective would also be invaluable.

[Andy Cress]

I'm not familiar with IPMISIM, but I know that Corey Minyard wrote ipmi_sim, and he has been a key developer in IPMI for a long time. I don't know much about the IPMI simulators, except that some of them have gone beyond the IPMI spec (expanded the number of sensors beyond one byte). I deal mostly with IPMI firmware.

[Sangeetha Elumalai]

Thank you for your response. Is there a method to test ipmiutil without a physical IPMI server?

[Sangeetha Elumalai]

May I kindly request an update on this, please?

[Andy Cress]

There are some ipmiutil commands that do not require sensor ids which should work with the simulators (like health, reset, wdt), but if the command to the simulator requires two bytes for sensors, it currently won't work with ipmiutil. It would be a large effort to add support for two-byte sensor ids throughout the code. The purpose of IPMI is to manage physical servers with IPMI firmware.

[Sangeetha Elumalai]

What is the 'driverless' option in ipmiutil? Could you explain it to me?

[Sangeetha Elumalai]

I am attempting to test ipmiutil using the ipmi_if.txt file and have encountered the following result:

# cat ipmi_if.txt 
# IPMI Device Information
device /tmp/.ipmi_dummy
#

# ipmiutil sel -v -f ipmi_if.txt 
ipmiutil sel version 3.19
RecId Date/Time_______ SEV Src_ Evt_Type___ Sens# Evt_detail - Trig [Evt_data]
2cde Type0f INF 69 e2 62 de 62 0a 00 00 00 00 01 78 3a 
ipmiutil sel, completed successfully
# 

I'm interested in understanding the meaning of the output, specifically the line 2cde Type0f INF 69 e2 62 de 62 0a 00 00 00 00 01 78 3a.

Could you explain where this output comes from?

[Sangeetha Elumalai]

May I kindly request an explanation on this, please?

[Andy Cress]

Let's review the questions you posed:
1) Is there a method to test ipmiutil without a physical IPMI server?
A: The purpose of ipmiutil is to support physical IPMI servers, but it may work with the simulators for functions that do not require two-byte sensors (outside the IPMI standard).
2) What is the 'driverless' option in ipmiutil?
Normally, when configuring IPMI on a server, it is run locally, and a driver is required for the OS to talk to the IPMI firmware. Key drivers: openipmi (Linux), imb (Linux/Windows), MSipmi (Windows), and driverless (Linux) where ipmiutil does direct IO to the IPMI firmware rather than through a driver.
This does not apply to remote ipmiutil commands (with -N).
3) Test using ipmi_if.txt
That is not a valid test file for ipmiutil sel -f. It gives cryptic results because the file is not in the specified format. It interpreted the line starting with 'de' as intended to be a hex SEL record. See the man page where it describes -f:
-f sel_file
Interpret a file containing raw ascii text SEL data captured
with ipmiutil sel -r, or some other similar utility. Each line
in the file should be in this form, with no leading spaces:
04 00 02 76 a9 4a 47 20 00 04 10 09 6f 42 0f ff
Lines not in this format will be ignored.
It looks like that file was intended for a way to simulate a local ipmi driver device. There should be further instructions about how to install that simulated driver (I presume to make it look like openipmi driver) in the place where you got it.

[Sangeetha Elumalai]

I appreciate your time and your response.