IPMITool

IPMITool is a hardware management utility that supports the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) specification v1.5 and v2.0.

IPMI is an open standard that defines the structures and interfaces used for remote monitoring and management of a computer motherboard (baseboard). IPMI defines a micro-controller, called the "baseboard management controller" (BMC), which is accessed locally through the managed computer's bus or through an out-of-band network interface connection (NIC).

For ClusterWare, Scyld supports IPMITool as the primary way to monitor and manage compute node hardware. IPMITool is part of the OpenIPMI package included in the base distribution (RHEL4 Update 2 and later). The Scyld ClusterWare distribution includes /etc/beowulf/init.d/20ipmi, a script that enables IPMI on compute nodes.

You can use IPMITool for a variety of tasks, such as:

• Inventory your computer baseboards to determine what sensors are present

• Monitor sensors (fan status, temperature, power supply voltages, etc.)

• Read and display values from the Sensor Data Repository (SDR)

• Read and set the BMC's LAN configuration

• Remotely control chassis power

• Display the contents of the System Event Log (SEL), which records events detected by the BMC as well as events explicitly logged by the operating system

• Print out Field Replaceable Unit (FRU) information, such as vendor ID, manufacturer, etc.

• Configure and emulate a serial port to the baseboard using the out-of-band network connection known as serial over LAN (SOL)

Several dozen companies support IPMI, including many leading manufacturers of computer hardware. You can learn more about OpenIPMI from the OpenIPMI project page at http://openipmi.sourceforge.net, which includes links to documentation and downloads.