Can we please finally solve Dell's racadm for FreeBSD? Advice needed

[Peter G.]

Dear everybody,

regarding: https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=201799

would somebody knowledgeable be kind enough to advice and/or help with
bringing Dell racadm client/tools to FreeBSD? What is the problem with
ipmi enumeration Dan mentioned on his commit? What is in the first place
desired is local access to local hardware via standard racadm client.
Local management is the "big kahuna" here.

There were several attempts over the years, yet everything waned away
without any solid results. Dell hardware is constantly mentioned on the
lists or in the forums, so clearly many of us use it. I myself manage
several Dell servers. The lack of local racadm for FreeBSD is daring.

On my own and out of my pocket I will offer 50 EUR in Bitcoin to anybody
who will solve the problem, i.e. provide a working racadm client which
can access and manage local hardware. Of course anybody else is welcome
to chime in. I am willing to put that in escrow with a trusted member of
the community. Please let me know what to do.

Many thanks!
--
PG

[Nicolas Embriz]

Regarding this topic I have a Dell Power 2900 that I could donate for
testing more in detail this issues.

If interested please PM.

Regards.

Post by Peter G.
Dear everybody,
regarding: https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=201799
would somebody knowledgeable be kind enough to advice and/or help with
bringing Dell racadm client/tools to FreeBSD? What is the problem with
ipmi enumeration Dan mentioned on his commit? What is in the first place
desired is local access to local hardware via standard racadm client.
Local management is the "big kahuna" here.
There were several attempts over the years, yet everything waned away
without any solid results. Dell hardware is constantly mentioned on the
lists or in the forums, so clearly many of us use it. I myself manage
several Dell servers. The lack of local racadm for FreeBSD is daring.
On my own and out of my pocket I will offer 50 EUR in Bitcoin to anybody
who will solve the problem, i.e. provide a working racadm client which
can access and manage local hardware. Of course anybody else is welcome
to chime in. I am willing to put that in escrow with a trusted member of
the community. Please let me know what to do.
Many thanks!
--
PG
_______________________________________________
https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers

[Jack L.]

I manage a variety of Dell servers running FreeBSD, only 610 and 1950s
work with racadm but everything that can be done with racadm can also
be done with ipmitool. I just use ipmitool to get around instead of
their proprietary racadm stuff. What functionality do you need from
racadm and maybe I can give you an ipmitool equivalent?

Post by Nicolas Embriz
Regarding this topic I have a Dell Power 2900 that I could donate for
testing more in detail this issues.
If interested please PM.
Regards.

Post by Peter G.
Dear everybody,
regarding: https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=201799
would somebody knowledgeable be kind enough to advice and/or help with
bringing Dell racadm client/tools to FreeBSD? What is the problem with
ipmi enumeration Dan mentioned on his commit? What is in the first place
desired is local access to local hardware via standard racadm client.
Local management is the "big kahuna" here.
There were several attempts over the years, yet everything waned away
without any solid results. Dell hardware is constantly mentioned on the
lists or in the forums, so clearly many of us use it. I myself manage
several Dell servers. The lack of local racadm for FreeBSD is daring.
On my own and out of my pocket I will offer 50 EUR in Bitcoin to anybody
who will solve the problem, i.e. provide a working racadm client which
can access and manage local hardware. Of course anybody else is welcome
to chime in. I am willing to put that in escrow with a trusted member of
the community. Please let me know what to do.
Many thanks!
--
PG
_______________________________________________
https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers

_______________________________________________
https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers

[Peter G.]

Post by Jack L.
I manage a variety of Dell servers running FreeBSD, only 610 and 1950s
work with racadm but everything that can be done with racadm can also
be done with ipmitool. I just use ipmitool to get around instead of
their proprietary racadm stuff. What functionality do you need from
racadm and maybe I can give you an ipmitool equivalent?

It seems I may missed the ipmi angle altogether assuming it was only
remote. Only now following Dan's comments I am realizing how racadm
works talking to local hardware.

You mean using this impi(4) as a local device and talking to it via
local tool allowing coms with the device? Oh, that would do nicely. I
need this for scripting mostly, e.g. monitoring what the intrusion
sensor shows.

Can you please describe your setup? What other kernel modules and 3rd
party software do you employ? Any tricks with device.hints are needed? I
have a small R220 at hand for testing, but it's lacking impi(4)
altogether. Will have to rebuild.

--
PG

[Vincent Hoffman-Kazlauskas]

for a quick tl;dr
kldload ipmi
pkg install freeipmi ipmitool
dmidecode --string system-product-name
PowerEdge R420
[***@brittlestar ~]# ipmi-sensors | head -4
ID | Name | Type | Reading | Units |
Event
1 | SEL | Event Logging Disabled | N/A | N/A | N/A
2 | Intrusion | Physical Security | N/A | N/A |
'OK'
11 | Fan1A | Fan | 6240.00 | RPM |
'OK'


or for an r210
***@helios:~ # ipmi-sensors | grep -i intr
31 | Intrusion | Physical Security | N/A | N/A | 'OK'

see also the rest of the freeipmi utils and maybe ipmitool for a
different interface (I prefer it for some uses)

Vince

Post by Peter G.

Post by Jack L.
I manage a variety of Dell servers running FreeBSD, only 610 and 1950s
work with racadm but everything that can be done with racadm can also
be done with ipmitool. I just use ipmitool to get around instead of
their proprietary racadm stuff. What functionality do you need from
racadm and maybe I can give you an ipmitool equivalent?

It seems I may missed the ipmi angle altogether assuming it was only
remote. Only now following Dan's comments I am realizing how racadm
works talking to local hardware.
You mean using this impi(4) as a local device and talking to it via
local tool allowing coms with the device? Oh, that would do nicely. I
need this for scripting mostly, e.g. monitoring what the intrusion
sensor shows.
Can you please describe your setup? What other kernel modules and 3rd
party software do you employ? Any tricks with device.hints are needed? I
have a small R220 at hand for testing, but it's lacking impi(4)
altogether. Will have to rebuild.
--
PG
_______________________________________________
https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers

[Doug Ambrisko]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 11:44:14AM +0100, Vincent Hoffman-Kazlauskas wrote:
| for a quick tl;dr
| kldload ipmi
| pkg install freeipmi ipmitool
| dmidecode --string system-product-name
| PowerEdge R420
| [***@brittlestar ~]# ipmi-sensors | head -4
| ID | Name | Type | Reading | Units |
| Event
| 1 | SEL | Event Logging Disabled | N/A | N/A | N/A
| 2 | Intrusion | Physical Security | N/A | N/A |
| 'OK'
| 11 | Fan1A | Fan | 6240.00 | RPM |
| 'OK'
|
|
| or for an r210
| ***@helios:~ # ipmi-sensors | grep -i intr
| 31 | Intrusion | Physical Security | N/A | N/A | 'OK'
|
| see also the rest of the freeipmi utils and maybe ipmitool for a
| different interface (I prefer it for some uses)

FYI, Dell used to send patches to the ipmitool project for various extra
things they had such as changing text on the LCD etc. I forget if they
ever got checked into ipmitool. They would send it to the mailing list.
I haven't delt with Dell machines for a long time ... working more with
Cisco UCS machines.

Doug A.

[Jack L.]

I have
device ipmi

in my kernel config (or you can just kldload ipmi).

Install ipmitool, and most of the dell cmds are the usual ipmi
commands. Some commands might have to be sent via raw or delloem and
you can't soft reset the drac, only hard reset it via the tool.

Post by Peter G.

Post by Jack L.
I manage a variety of Dell servers running FreeBSD, only 610 and 1950s
work with racadm but everything that can be done with racadm can also
be done with ipmitool. I just use ipmitool to get around instead of
their proprietary racadm stuff. What functionality do you need from
racadm and maybe I can give you an ipmitool equivalent?

It seems I may missed the ipmi angle altogether assuming it was only
remote. Only now following Dan's comments I am realizing how racadm
works talking to local hardware.
You mean using this impi(4) as a local device and talking to it via
local tool allowing coms with the device? Oh, that would do nicely. I
need this for scripting mostly, e.g. monitoring what the intrusion
sensor shows.
Can you please describe your setup? What other kernel modules and 3rd
party software do you employ? Any tricks with device.hints are needed? I
have a small R220 at hand for testing, but it's lacking impi(4)
altogether. Will have to rebuild.
--
PG

[Mark Blackman]

Post by Peter G.
Dear everybody,
regarding: https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=201799
would somebody knowledgeable be kind enough to advice and/or help with
bringing Dell racadm client/tools to FreeBSD? What is the problem with
ipmi enumeration Dan mentioned on his commit? What is in the first place
desired is local access to local hardware via standard racadm client.
Local management is the "big kahuna" here.
There were several attempts over the years, yet everything waned away
without any solid results. Dell hardware is constantly mentioned on the
lists or in the forums, so clearly many of us use it. I myself manage
several Dell servers. The lack of local racadm for FreeBSD is daring.
On my own and out of my pocket I will offer 50 EUR in Bitcoin to anybody
who will solve the problem, i.e. provide a working racadm client which
can access and manage local hardware. Of course anybody else is welcome
to chime in. I am willing to put that in escrow with a trusted member of
the community. Please let me know what to do.

A kind offer, and much better than nothing. I think more like Nx1000 Euros
cash would be a more realistic offer. Maybe a kickstarter campaign or similar
to fund it? If all the Dell server managers clubbed together, I bet they could
easily find that much. Alternately persuade the FreeBSD foundation to put their
focus behind it.

- Mark

[Peter G.]

Post by Mark Blackman

Post by Peter G.
On my own and out of my pocket I will offer 50 EUR in Bitcoin to anybody
who will solve the problem, i.e. provide a working racadm client which
can access and manage local hardware. Of course anybody else is welcome
to chime in. I am willing to put that in escrow with a trusted member of
the community. Please let me know what to do.

A kind offer, and much better than nothing. I think more like Nx1000 Euros
cash would be a more realistic offer. Maybe a kickstarter campaign or similar
to fund it? If all the Dell server managers clubbed together, I bet they could
easily find that much. Alternately persuade the FreeBSD foundation to put their
focus behind it.

I don't think this much exposure and/or funds is/are really needed here.
The proposed port, especially after Dan's commits, is already
functional. The local access is missing. I bet if anybody with knowledge
what to do offers a bit of advice how to solve it, it will be solved in
no time. I'd say this is more about know-how than funds.
--
PG