IPMI - oh my god!

[matute81]

Hello everybody,
I try to introduce in the forum an IPMI topic, hoping that someone will be able to give me some help
My problem is simple: I'm programming an ADLINK board (with intel corei7 on board) with my own OS and I have to acquire some data from IPMI (temperature and voltage, nothing more). My board expose IPMI by COM3 serial port.
Assuming that I'm able to handle the serial port (nothing too difficult here...) how can I communicate with BMC?
I'm reading the intel IPMI specification everrywhere but I cannot understand how I must do!

Does someone know something about this?

I tried to send some message on serial port but I had no response, which is the correct procedure to communicate by serial port with IPMI? which is the correct message format?
I found some source code but it's very difficult to read for me, and openIPMI does not support serial communication.
Thank you in advance!

[Combuster]

Start with posting an URL to the manual of the thing

[matute81]

Sure! Here it is:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... -home.html

[Combuster]

That's not the manual, that's patent nonsense.

[matute81]

I did not think that was too difficult to click on "Specifications"...
anyway... http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... ev1-4.html
ok?

[Combuster]

That's because I ran into a patent license first and stopped looking.

Code: Select all

~ $ wget http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/servers/ipmi/second-gen-interface-spec-v2-rev1-4.html
--2013-09-25 15:00:56--  http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/servers/ipmi/second-gen-interface-spec-v2-rev1-4.html
Resolving www.intel.com... 77.67.4.50, 77.67.4.43
Connecting to www.intel.com|77.67.4.50|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 403 Forbidden
2013-09-25 15:00:56 ERROR 403: Forbidden.

But anyway, since you do have the manual apparently, go read it

[matute81]

So...did you write 3 messages to tell me "help yourself with manual"?
Thank you very much....

[Combuster]

That's because it's impolite to blatantly say "RTFM", especially as a hunch. Now that I know you're not using some promo flyer for reference, I'm fairly sure you didn't do enough homework.

At any rate, if you found out which serial port it is, then the same place should also mention the configuration for that serial port.

[matute81]

I don't like polemics.
I know serial port configuration. That was not the point.
I simply asked if someone had some experience in IPMI low level programming (OS side) and can help me.
IPMI was never debate here.
I found some open source code that don't implement serial communication between OS and IPMI... and it's quite unclear on the specifications, from my point of view.

Bye

[djmauretto]

Look at SMBIOS ( System Management Bios)
IPMI Device Information Type 38

[matute81]

Thank you Mauretto.
I'm italian too.
In SMBIOS I can't find nothing useful for me, I think.
I know that I should be able to communicate with BMC using serial port COM3 (0x3E8), I also configured the serial controller, I try to send some message but I can't see the BMC reply.
So, which is the trick?

PS: my BMC, as I read on ADLINK specification, does not support any IPMI serial commands (chapter 25 of the IPMI spec), it supports standard command and some other sensor specific command.

[Combuster]

So, which is the trick?

The trick is not to think, but to know. That skill is more important than actually solving this problem.

Separating your last post and removing the subject-specific content reveals the following sentences:
- Grovel.
- Socializing with unrelated information.
- Guesswork.
- I'm repeating myself that it didn't work. I'm not showing how. I'm also not showing any lessons learned from the previous posts.
- Magically fix it for me.
- Random evidence that you have read a manual.

In other words, we have only one sentence out of six that's actually relevant to the problem, and it doesn't even tell a quarter of what you did, and nothing about how you tried to fix it.

So that you know, I have the IPMI manual open, I have a list of IPMI-over-serial specific options that you have yet to mention. I have toyed fairly often with serial connections, and I haven't seen the actual configuration of the serial link itself. Hence, the only thing I can be sure of is the cable, but not the devices on either end, or what's going over that cable.

In other words, I can't do anything to help because of your own way of asking questions.