[xcat-user] IBM IPMI USB interface

[Stuart B. <st...@4g...>]

We used to use IMM.LanOverUsb=Disabled but I changed it a while back
to be more standard with what IBM seemed to prefer.  I will probably
switch back to that mode of operation shortly.

I would prefer the IPMI USB interface not exist at all.

I would also (mostly) prefer that the KCS interface not be there
either, except once or twice that interface was useful to recover an
IMM which had lost it's network configuration.  The KCS interface was
probably also used once on each system many years ago when performing
an xCAT discovery operaton.

Other than needing to unpack a couple levels of archives for the IBM
distributed firmware files, flashing the firmware over the Ethernet
IMM interface using iflash has worked very well for us.

On Wed, 30 May 2018 at 14:07 -0000, Jarrod Johnson wrote:

> Note that in such a case, would have to do firmware updates for UEFI
> and IMM remotely (not the worst thing in the world).  Another
> alternative is to disable it in firmware:
> # nodeconfig s1 IMM.LanOverUsb=disable
>
> Or
>
> # pasu s1 set IMM.LanOverUsb Disabled
>
> This is a point of interest as there is a push to migrate more
> in-band instrumentation toward using that USB nic, to the point of
> some folks asking to remove IPMI KCS (which I oppose personally,
> never been a fan of IP as an ‘within-the-box’ protocol, precisely
> because software has understandably assumed ‘network’ meant talking
> to other systems not internal point to point).
>
> At the very least I’m pushing to no longer DHCPOFFER anything on
> that interface, and rework the software to use fe80:: addressing
> instead to avoid any network that OpenMPI or other similarly
> optimistic software getting confused by non-viable networks.
>
> As a point of historical interest, originally it did not DHCPOFFER,
> but some OS boot would block waiting for DHCP to complete, so the
> DHCPOFFER was done to speed up boot process of those platforms.  I
> don’t think any OS would be foiled by a link but no DHCP offer on a
> stray network anymore.
>
> None of this is likely to happen in currently or past shipped
> product, but would be effective as of the release of future product.
>
>
> From: Kevin Keane <kk...@sa...>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2018 12:20 PM
> To: xCAT Users Mailing list <xca...@li...>
> Subject: [External] Re: [xcat-user] CentOS 7, diskless compute and NetworkManager
>
> I had a similar problem with the USB-based IPMI network interfaces.
> I blacklisted the driver. In the image for your node, add the
> following file:
> /etc/modprobe.d/usbeth_blacklist.conf
> With the content (verify that cdc_ether is the correct driver
> first!)
> blacklist cdc_ether
> You can probably also edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-usb0
> and set ONBOOT=no