Garbage on SOL console (PE1950/lenny)

[Alexander Dupuy]

I wrote:

> The solution is to disable the IPMI-over-serial-port support on the BMC
> (the problem is that the login prompt from Linux - or any other output
> to the serial port - is interpreted as IPMI commands, for which an error
> is generated, which generates more output from Linux, ad infinitum).


David Sparks asked:

> Does anyone know how to do this with plain IPMI (preferably ipmitool)?
>   


On a 2950, I see that the ipmitool channel command might be able to do
this, although it's not entirely clear:


# ipmitool channel help
Channel Commands: authcap   <channel number> <max privilege>
                  getaccess <channel number> [user id]
                  setaccess <channel number> <user id> [callin=on|off]
[ipmi=on|off] [link=on|off] [privilege=level]
                  info      [channel number]
                  getciphers <ipmi | sol> [channel]

Possible privilege levels are:
   1   Callback level
   2   User level
   3   Operator level
   4   Administrator level
   5   OEM Proprietary level
  15   No access
# ipmitool channel info 2
Channel 0x2 info:
  Channel Medium Type   : Serial/Modem
  Channel Protocol Type : IPMB-1.0
  Session Support       : single-session
  Active Session Count  : 0
  Protocol Vendor ID    : 7154
# ipmitool channel getaccess 2 2
Maximum User IDs     : 10                     
Enabled User IDs     : 1

User ID              : 2
User Name            : root
Fixed Name           : No
Access Available     : call-in / callback
Link Authentication  : enabled
IPMI Messaging       : enabled
Privilege Level      : ADMINISTRATOR
# ipmitool channel setaccess 2 2 callin=off link=off ipmi=off privilege=15
# ipmitool channel getaccess 2 2
Maximum User IDs     : 10
Enabled User IDs     : 1

User ID              : 2
User Name            : root
Fixed Name           : No
Access Available     : callback
Link Authentication  : disabled
IPMI Messaging       : disabled
Privilege Level      : NO ACCESS
#

I tried ipmitool channel authcap without any luck - no idea whether this
would do anything for you.

Now I am running this on a system where serial access was already turned
off (and yet, the serial channel root user access was still enabled) -
you will have to try it yourself and see if it really prevents the
endless chatter problem.  I'm not very confident that this will do what
is needed.

I suspect that you will have more luck using the (better, IMHO) ipmiutil
toolset, specifically the tmconfig (a.k.a ipmiutil serial) command:

# ipmiutil serial -d  # or tmconfig -d

This command prints out a lot of information, and although it ultimately
fails, I think that it has actually disabled serial access (or possibly,
it is failing because it is already disabled):

...
Channel Access Mode(2=Ser): 38 04 : Access = Disabled, PEF Alerts Disabled
Users: showing 4 of max 10 users (1 enabled)
Get User Access(1): 0a 81 01 0f: No access ()
Get User Access(2): 0a 41 01 4f: No access (root)
Get User Access(3): 0a 81 01 0f: No access ()
Get User Access(4): 0a 81 01 0f: No access ()
SetUserAccess(1/04), ret = 0
SetChanAcc: completion code=cc
SetChanAcc: completion code=cc
SetChanAcc(ser/disable), ret = -1
GetChanAcc(ser/disable), ret = 0, new value = 38
SetSerEntry(3): completion code=cc
SetSerEntry(3/disable), ret = -1
tmconfig, error -1

If it turns out that ipmiutil / tmconfig doesn't do what you need, I
highly recommend contacting the maintainer, Andy Cress (go to the
SourceForge project for ipmiutil and use the tracker to file an issue). 
I was having problems getting the ipmiutil sol / isolconsole program to
successfully connect to our Dell x950 systems, and he was extremely
responsive and helpful (and the latest 2.3.7 version now has no problems
setting up a SOL console session with a Dell, and unlike ipmiutil sol
activate, also runs on Windows, and doesn't segfault when it gets
disconnected or timed out).

> Excellent analysis btw.
>   


Thanks


@alex

-- 
mailto:alex.dupuy at mac.com

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