Listed below are general IPMI options, tool specific options, trouble shooting information, workaround information, examples, and known issues. For a general introduction to FreeIPMI please see freeipmi(7). See GENERAL USE below for a description on basic use of ipmi-config.
0 - Authentication Algorithm = None; Integrity Algorithm = None; Confidentiality Algorithm = None
1 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-SHA1; Integrity Algorithm = None; Confidentiality Algorithm = None
2 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-SHA1; Integrity Algorithm = HMAC-SHA1-96; Confidentiality Algorithm = None
3 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-SHA1; Integrity Algorithm = HMAC-SHA1-96; Confidentiality Algorithm = AES-CBC-128
6 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-MD5; Integrity Algorithm = None; Confidentiality Algorithm = None
7 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-MD5; Integrity Algorithm = HMAC-MD5-128; Confidentiality Algorithm = None
8 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-MD5; Integrity Algorithm = HMAC-MD5-128; Confidentiality Algorithm = AES-CBC-128
11 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-MD5; Integrity Algorithm = MD5-128; Confidentiality Algorithm = None
12 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-MD5; Integrity Algorithm = MD5-128; Confidentiality Algorithm = AES-CBC-128
15 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-SHA256; Integrity Algorithm = None; Confidentiality Algorithm = None
16 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-SHA256; Integrity Algorithm = HMAC_SHA256_128; Confidentiality Algorithm = None
17 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-SHA256; Integrity Algorithm = HMAC_SHA256_128; Confidentiality Algorithm = AES-CBC-128
A) Run with --checkout to get a copy of the current configuration and store it in a file. The standard output can be redirected to a file or a file can be specified with the --filename option.
B) Edit the configuration file with an editor.
C) Commit the configuration back using the --commit option and specifying the configuration file with the --filename option. The configuration can be committed to multiple hosts in parallel via the hostrange support.
Although not typically necessarily, some motherboards do not store configuration values in non-volatile memory. Therefore, after system reboots, some configuration values may have changed. The user may wish to run configuration tools on each boot to ensure configuration values remain.
Comments will be listed on occassion in checked out files with information on how to configure fields. The ipmi-config.conf(5) manpage also provides additional information on the meaning of different fields.
For users with large clusters or sets of nodes, you may wish to use the same configuration file for all nodes. The one problem with this is that the IP address and MAC address will be different on each node in your cluster and thus can't be configured through the same config file. The IP address and MAC address in your config file may be overwritten on the command line using --key-pair option. The following example could be used in a script to configure each node in a cluster with the same BMC config file. The script only needs to determine the correct IP address and MAC address to use.
# ipmi-config --commit -k Lan_Conf:Ip_Address=$MY_IP -k Lan_Conf:Mac_Address=$MY_MAC --filename=my_bmc.conf
The UserN:Enable_User field (where N is a number) cannot be checked out on older IPMI systems, therefore the checked out value will sometime be blank.
The UserN:Lan_Session_Limit and UserN:Serial_Session_Limit fields (where N is a number) cannot be checked out on some systems, therefore the checked out value will always be blank. If not specified in later commits of configurations, the field may be reset to 0 due to a requirement that other fields (configured along with the session limit) will require an input value for the session limit. Under most conditions, it is not necessary to set this field and most users may choose to ignore it. This field is considered optional by IPMI standards, and may result in errors when attempting to configure it to a non-zero value. If errors to occur, setting the value back to 0 should resolve problems.
The fields Lan_Conf:IP_Address and Lan_Conf:MAC_Address cannot be committed in parallel via hostrange support. Each machine must be configured with a unique IP Address and MAC Address tuple, therefore we disallow this configuration in ipmi-config.
On some motherboards, Lan_Conf:MAC_Address may be read only and the MAC address is automatically configured.
On some motherboards, Lan_Conf:MAC_Address may be read only and the MAC address is configured via an OEM command. See ipmi-oem(8) to see if OEM configuration for your motherboard is supported.
On some motherboards, a number of user configuration fields cannot be read or configured until after a non-null username or non-null password is configured. In some of these cases, an appropriate output in the config file will indicate this situation. However, not all motherboard corner cases may be detected. Users may wish to play around with the ordering of fields to work around these problems.
On some motherboards, OEM Authentication in Lan_Conf_Auth cannot be enabled. However, the default motherboard settings have these fields enabled. Users are advised to disable all OEM Authentication in this section.
On some motherboards, multiple channels may exist for either LAN or Serial IPMI communication. If multiple channels exist, configuration of both channels can be viewed and ultimately configured by running --checkout under verbose mode. Each section or key name will be suffixed appropriately with the word Channel and the channel number. For example, you might see a Lan_Conf_Channel_1 and Lan_Conf_Channel_3, where you can configure LAN configuration on Channels 1 and 3 respectively.
On some motherboards, configuration changes will not be "absorbed" by the system until the motherboard is hard-reset. This can be accomplished by physically powering off and on the system (e.g. button push), or it can be accomplished through a cold-reset. A cold-reset can be executed via bmc-device.
This range syntax is meant only as a convenience on clusters with a prefixNN naming convention and specification of ranges should not be considered necessary -- the list foo1,foo9 could be specified as such, or by the range foo[1,9].
Some examples of range usage follow:
foo[01-05] instead of foo01,foo02,foo03,foo04,foo05
foo[7,9-10] instead of foo7,foo9,foo10
foo[0-3] instead of foo0,foo1,foo2,foo3
As a reminder to the reader, some shells will interpret brackets ([ and ]) for pattern matching. Depending on your shell, it may be necessary to enclose ranged lists within quotes.
When multiple hosts are specified by the user, a thread will be executed for each host in parallel up to the configured fanout (which can be adjusted via the -F option). This will allow communication to large numbers of nodes far more quickly than if done in serial.
By default, standard output from each node specified will be output with the hostname prepended to each line. Although this output is readable in many situations, it may be difficult to read in other situations. For example, output from multiple nodes may be mixed together. The -B and -C options can be used to change this default.
In-band IPMI Communication will be used when the host "localhost" is specified. This allows the user to add the localhost into the hostranged output.
IPMI over LAN problems involve a misconfiguration of the remote machine's BMC. Double check to make sure the following are configured properly in the remote machine's BMC: IP address, MAC address, subnet mask, username, user enablement, user privilege, password, LAN privilege, LAN enablement, and allowed authentication type(s). For IPMI 2.0 connections, double check to make sure the cipher suite privilege(s) and K_g key are configured properly. The ipmi-config(8) tool can be used to check and/or change these configuration settings.
Inband IPMI problems are typically caused by improperly configured drivers or non-standard BMCs.
In addition to the troubleshooting tips below, please see WORKAROUNDS below to also if there are any vendor specific bugs that have been discovered and worked around.
Listed below are many of the common issues for error messages. For additional support, please e-mail the <freeipmi-users@gnu.org> mailing list.
"username invalid" - The username entered (or a NULL username if none was entered) is not available on the remote machine. It may also be possible the remote BMC's username configuration is incorrect.
"password invalid" - The password entered (or a NULL password if none was entered) is not correct. It may also be possible the password for the user is not correctly configured on the remote BMC.
"password verification timeout" - Password verification has timed out. A "password invalid" error (described above) or a generic "session timeout" (described below) occurred. During this point in the protocol it cannot be differentiated which occurred.
"k_g invalid" - The K_g key entered (or a NULL K_g key if none was entered) is not correct. It may also be possible the K_g key is not correctly configured on the remote BMC.
"privilege level insufficient" - An IPMI command requires a higher user privilege than the one authenticated with. Please try to authenticate with a higher privilege. This may require authenticating to a different user which has a higher maximum privilege.
"privilege level cannot be obtained for this user" - The privilege level you are attempting to authenticate with is higher than the maximum allowed for this user. Please try again with a lower privilege. It may also be possible the maximum privilege level allowed for a user is not configured properly on the remote BMC.
"authentication type unavailable for attempted privilege level" - The authentication type you wish to authenticate with is not available for this privilege level. Please try again with an alternate authentication type or alternate privilege level. It may also be possible the available authentication types you can authenticate with are not correctly configured on the remote BMC.
"cipher suite id unavailable" - The cipher suite id you wish to authenticate with is not available on the remote BMC. Please try again with an alternate cipher suite id. It may also be possible the available cipher suite ids are not correctly configured on the remote BMC.
"ipmi 2.0 unavailable" - IPMI 2.0 was not discovered on the remote machine. Please try to use IPMI 1.5 instead.
"connection timeout" - Initial IPMI communication failed. A number of potential errors are possible, including an invalid hostname specified, an IPMI IP address cannot be resolved, IPMI is not enabled on the remote server, the network connection is bad, etc. Please verify configuration and connectivity.
"session timeout" - The IPMI session has timed out. Please reconnect. If this error occurs often, you may wish to increase the retransmission timeout. Some remote BMCs are considerably slower than others.
"device not found" - The specified device could not be found. Please check configuration or inputs and try again.
"driver timeout" - Communication with the driver or device has timed out. Please try again.
"message timeout" - Communication with the driver or device has timed out. Please try again.
"BMC busy" - The BMC is currently busy. It may be processing information or have too many simultaneous sessions to manage. Please wait and try again.
"could not find inband device" - An inband device could not be found. Please check configuration or specify specific device or driver on the command line.
"driver timeout" - The inband driver has timed out communicating to the local BMC or service processor. The BMC or service processor may be busy or (worst case) possibly non-functioning.
The hardware listed below may only indicate the hardware that a problem was discovered on. Newer versions of hardware may fix the problems indicated below. Similar machines from vendors may or may not exhibit the same problems. Different vendors may license their firmware from the same IPMI firmware developer, so it may be worthwhile to try workarounds listed below even if your motherboard is not listed.
If you believe your hardware has an additional compliance issue that needs a workaround to be implemented, please contact the FreeIPMI maintainers on <freeipmi-users@gnu.org> or <freeipmi-devel@gnu.org>.
assumeio - This workaround flag will assume inband interfaces communicate with system I/O rather than being memory-mapped. This will work around systems that report invalid base addresses. Those hitting this issue may see "device not supported" or "could not find inband device" errors. Issue observed on HP ProLiant DL145 G1.
spinpoll - This workaround flag will inform some inband drivers (most notably the KCS driver) to spin while polling rather than putting the process to sleep. This may significantly improve the wall clock running time of tools because an operating system scheduler's granularity may be much larger than the time it takes to perform a single IPMI message transaction. However, by spinning, your system may be performing less useful work by not contexting out the tool for a more useful task.
authcap - This workaround flag will skip early checks for username capabilities, authentication capabilities, and K_g support and allow IPMI authentication to succeed. It works around multiple issues in which the remote system does not properly report username capabilities, authentication capabilities, or K_g status. Those hitting this issue may see "username invalid", "authentication type unavailable for attempted privilege level", or "k_g invalid" errors. Issue observed on Asus P5M2/P5MT-R/RS162-E4/RX4, Intel SR1520ML/X38ML, and Sun Fire 2200/4150/4450 with ELOM.
nochecksumcheck - This workaround flag will tell FreeIPMI to not check the checksums returned from IPMI command responses. It works around systems that return invalid checksums due to implementation errors, but the packet is otherwise valid. Users are cautioned on the use of this option, as it removes validation of packet integrity in a number of circumstances. However, it is unlikely to be an issue in most situations. Those hitting this issue may see "connection timeout", "session timeout", or "password verification timeout" errors. On IPMI 1.5 connections, the "noauthcodecheck" workaround may also needed too. Issue observed on Supermicro X9SCM-iiF, Supermicro X9DRi-F, and Supermicro X9DRFR.
idzero - This workaround flag will allow empty session IDs to be accepted by the client. It works around IPMI sessions that report empty session IDs to the client. Those hitting this issue may see "session timeout" errors. Issue observed on Tyan S2882 with M3289 BMC.
unexpectedauth - This workaround flag will allow unexpected non-null authcodes to be checked as though they were expected. It works around an issue when packets contain non-null authentication data when they should be null due to disabled per-message authentication. Those hitting this issue may see "session timeout" errors. Issue observed on Dell PowerEdge 2850,SC1425. Confirmed fixed on newer firmware.
forcepermsg - This workaround flag will force per-message authentication to be used no matter what is advertised by the remote system. It works around an issue when per-message authentication is advertised as disabled on the remote system, but it is actually required for the protocol. Those hitting this issue may see "session timeout" errors. Issue observed on IBM eServer 325.
endianseq - This workaround flag will flip the endian of the session sequence numbers to allow the session to continue properly. It works around IPMI 1.5 session sequence numbers that are the wrong endian. Those hitting this issue may see "session timeout" errors. Issue observed on some Sun ILOM 1.0/2.0 (depends on service processor endian).
noauthcodecheck - This workaround flag will tell FreeIPMI to not check the authentication codes returned from IPMI 1.5 command responses. It works around systems that return invalid authentication codes due to hashing or implementation errors. Users are cautioned on the use of this option, as it removes an authentication check verifying the validity of a packet. However, in most organizations, this is unlikely to be a security issue. Those hitting this issue may see "connection timeout", "session timeout", or "password verification timeout" errors. Issue observed on Xyratex FB-H8-SRAY, Intel Windmill, Quanta Winterfell, and Wiwynn Windmill.
intel20 - This workaround flag will work around several Intel IPMI 2.0 authentication issues. The issues covered include padding of usernames, and password truncation if the authentication algorithm is HMAC-MD5-128. Those hitting this issue may see "username invalid", "password invalid", or "k_g invalid" errors. Issue observed on Intel SE7520AF2 with Intel Server Management Module (Professional Edition).
supermicro20 - This workaround flag will work around several Supermicro IPMI 2.0 authentication issues on motherboards w/ Peppercon IPMI firmware. The issues covered include handling invalid length authentication codes. Those hitting this issue may see "password invalid" errors. Issue observed on Supermicro H8QME with SIMSO daughter card. Confirmed fixed on newerver firmware.
sun20 - This workaround flag will work work around several Sun IPMI 2.0 authentication issues. The issues covered include invalid lengthed hash keys, improperly hashed keys, and invalid cipher suite records. Those hitting this issue may see "password invalid" or "bmc error" errors. Issue observed on Sun Fire 4100/4200/4500 with ILOM. This workaround automatically includes the "opensesspriv" workaround.
opensesspriv - This workaround flag will slightly alter FreeIPMI's IPMI 2.0 connection protocol to workaround an invalid hashing algorithm used by the remote system. The privilege level sent during the Open Session stage of an IPMI 2.0 connection is used for hashing keys instead of the privilege level sent during the RAKP1 connection stage. Those hitting this issue may see "password invalid", "k_g invalid", or "bad rmcpplus status code" errors. Issue observed on Sun Fire 4100/4200/4500 with ILOM, Inventec 5441/Dell Xanadu II, Supermicro X8DTH, Supermicro X8DTG, Intel S5500WBV/Penguin Relion 700, Intel S2600JF/Appro 512X, Quanta QSSC-S4R/Appro GB812X-CN, and Dell C5220. This workaround is automatically triggered with the "sun20" workaround.
integritycheckvalue - This workaround flag will work around an invalid integrity check value during an IPMI 2.0 session establishment when using Cipher Suite ID 0. The integrity check value should be 0 length, however the remote motherboard responds with a non-empty field. Those hitting this issue may see "k_g invalid" errors. Issue observed on Supermicro X8DTG, Supermicro X8DTU, and Intel S5500WBV/Penguin Relion 700, and Intel S2600JF/Appro 512X.
No IPMI 1.5 Support - Some motherboards that support IPMI 2.0 have been found to not support IPMI 1.5. Those hitting this issue may see "ipmi 2.0 unavailable" or "connection timeout" errors. This issue can be worked around by using IPMI 2.0 instead of IPMI 1.5 by specifying --driver-type=LAN_2_0. Issue observed on a number of HP and Supermicro motherboards.
slowcommit - This workaround will slow down commits to the BMC by sleeping one second between the commit of sections. It works around motherboards that have BMCs that can be overwhelmed by commits. Those hitting this issue may see commit errors or commits not being written to the BMC. Issue observed on Supermicro H8QME.
veryslowcommit - This workaround will slow down commits to the BMC by sleeping one second between the commit of every key. It works around motherboards that have BMCs that can be overwhelmed by commits. Those hitting this issue may see commit errors or commits not being written to the BMC. Issue observed on Quanta S99Q/Dell FS12-TY.
solchannelassumelanchannel - This workaround will force ipmi-config to assume that the channel used SOL is identical to the channel used for LAN. On some motherboards, the SOL channel is reported incorrectly, leading to incorrect configuration. Most notably, this problem has come up when attempting to configure multiple channels. Issue observed on Intel S5500WBV/Penguin Relion 700.
Output all core configuration information to the console. # ipmi-config --checkout --category=pef
Output all pef configuration information to the console. # ipmi-config --checkout --category=pef,chassis
Output all pef and chassis configuration information to the console.
# ipmi-config --checkout --filename=bmc-data1.conf
Store all core configuration information in bmc-data1.conf.
# ipmi-config --diff --filename=bmc-data2.conf
Show all difference between the current configuration and the bmc-data2.conf file.
# ipmi-config --diff --key-pair=lan_conf_misc:gratuitous_arp_interval=8
Show difference with the current configuration and the 'lan_conf_misc:gratuitous_arp_interval' of value '8'.
# ipmi-config --commit --filename=bmc-data1.conf
Commit all configuration values from the bmc-data1.conf file.
# ipmi-config --commit --key-pair=lan_conf_misc:gratuitous_arp_interval=4
Commit key 'lan_conf_misc:gratuitous_arp_interval' of value '4'.
# ipmi-config --commit --filename=bmc-data-updt.conf --key-pair=lan_conf_misc:gratuitous_arp_interval=4
Commit all configuration values from bmc-data-updt.conf and key 'lan_conf_misc:gratuitous_arp_interval' of value '4'.
If multiple hosts are specified for communication, the exit status is 0 if and only if all targets successfully execute. If any non-fatal error occurs, exit status is 1. If any fatal error occurs, exit status is 2.
In order to prevent brute force attacks, some BMCs will temporarily "lock up" after a number of remote authentication errors. You may need to wait awhile in order to this temporary "lock up" to pass before you may authenticate again.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
http://www.gnu.org/software/freeipmi/