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I'm new to working with IPMI and trying to configure a server running Ubuntu 14.04 with an IPMI IP address. I found there are a couple of packages available for Ubuntu that may help with this: openipmi and ipmitools, according to this link, which seems to recommend openipmi due to its being officially supported. However, I had an easier time finding instructions for ipmitools, so I attempted to use ipmitools (the instructions were for Centos and included use of yum, but I attempted to adjust for Ubuntu appropriately). I ran into the following error during installation:

Could not open device at /dev/ipmi0 or /dev/ipmi/0 or /dev/ipmidev/0

I found this question, which addressed the issue by modifying /etc/modules, but the solution didn't work for me (again, this solution was not for Ubuntu, and this could easily be the source of the problem). When I restarted my machine (actually a Vsphere VM), the machine would not come up due to disk errors. I chose to skip the errors, which allowed successful booting, after which time I reverted the changes to /etc/modules and successfully restarted.

Can anyone explain what I'm doing wrong, or perhaps a better sequence of steps to get started with a basic IPMI configuration on my Ubuntu VM?

***BTW, you may be wondering why I care about IPMI on a VM -- actually this is just a testing sandbox for an appliance I'm working on, and that appliance will run Ubuntu and need an IPMI configuration.

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jonderry
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1 Answers1

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IPMI is only available on physical machines, as it is a piece of management hardware that can't work on virtual machines (and isn't required there). ipmitools etc. are just tools to access this piece of hardware from inside the operating system, but it requires the BMC to actually exist.

It can be used e.g. to monitor power status, fan speeds, temperatures and to turn the system on and off. All of this is irrelevant on virtual machines.

Sven
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  • How can I tell whether the system has a BMC? – jonderry Sep 25 '14 at 01:29
  • Look into the datasheet/documentation. – Sven Sep 25 '14 at 01:30
  • @sven seems necessary to first [check](https://stackoverflow.com/a/9845937/4970442) if [necessary modeules](https://serverfault.com/a/480374/407820) are loaded. Find all the alternatives with `find /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/char/ipmi/ -type f -name '*.ko*' -exec modinfo {} \; | egrep "^filename|^description"`. Then cross your fingers and use one of [these techniques](https://serverfault.com/a/340961/407820). – Pablo A Jan 30 '18 at 04:35