OpenIPMI, IPMI_POWERCYLCE option behaviour

[Nicky Peeters]

Hello all,

Just a quick question about the IPMI_POWERCYCLE option when using the  
OpenIPMI tools and drivers (using rhel4).
I've looked around but got a bit confused as what this exactly does  
by the config file:

## Path:        Hardware/IPMI
## Description: Enable IPMI_POWERCYCLE if you want the system to be  
power-cycled on reboot
## Type:        yesno
## Default:     "no"
## Config:      ipmi
# Enable IPMI_POWERCYCLE if you want the system to be power-cycled  
(power
# down, delay briefly, power on) rather than power off, on systems
# that support such.  IPMI_POWEROFF=yes is also required.
IPMI_POWERCYCLE=yes

So my question:

Does enabling this option:

1) force the IPMI controller to also power cycle the system after you  
issue a reboot command (shutdown -r now) so a faulty shutdown/reboot  
procedure in Linux won't leave your machine in limbo.

2) always force a power cycle, even when using a 'shutdown -h now'  
command, so your server always reboots. So in essence, future reboots  
should be done with the shutdown -h now command (seems odd ;-)

The reason why I'm asking is because 2 out of 3 Poweredge 1850's  
failed to 'power cycle' when doing  a 'shutdown -r now', and left the  
machines in such a state that not even the IPMI would listen to  
ipmitool commands (over lan). The poweredges where behind in kernel- 
updates but all other updates were installed, so I guess this release- 
mismatch caused the reboot procedure to flake out.

The machines now reboot without problems after receiving the latest  
kernel updates.

thanks all,

NickyP, Belgium