Sun Microsystems, Inc.
implemented in hardware and firmware. The key differentiator of Intelligent Platform Management is that these
functions are independent of the main CPU, BIOS, and OS. There are two major components of platform
management: the Service Processor (or BMC) and System Management Software (SMS). Intelligent Platform
Management capabilities are a key component in providing enterprise-class management for high-availability
systems. Platform status information can be obtained and recovery actions initiated under situations where
system management software and normal in-band management mechanisms are unavailable.
The Service Processor is the brain behind platform management. Its primary purpose is to provide autonomous
sensor monitoring and event logging features. Typical sensor-related events are out-of-range temperature or
voltage and fan failure. When an event occurs, it is noted in the system event log and made available to SMS.
The Service Processor is powered by the power supply stand-by voltage and will function even when the server
is powered down or the operating system has crashed. This allows platform status to be obtained and recovery
initiated under situations in which in-band delivery mechanisms are unavailable. In modern systems, the
Intelligent Platform Management Interface provides a hardware-level interface specification for monitoring and
control functions. It defines a standard, abstract, message-based interface between the BMC and SMS and a
common set of commands for operations such as accessing sensor values, setting thresholds, logging events,
and controlling a watchdog timer. IPMI messages can be used to communicate with the BMC over serial and
LAN interfaces, so software designed for in-band (local) management can be re-used for out-of-band (remote)
management simply by changing the low-level communications layer.
IPMItool
IPMItool is a simple command-line interface to systems that support the IPMI v2.0 specification. IPMItool
provides the ability to read the sensor data repository and print sensor values, display the contents of the
system event log, print field-replaceable unit information, read and set LAN configuration parameters, and
perform remote chassis power control. IPMItool was originally written to take advantage of IPMI-over-LAN
interfaces but is also capable of using the system interface as provided by a Linux kernel device driver such as
OpenIPMI or a SolarisTM driver called BMC, which is included in Solaris 10. IPMItool is available under a BSD-
compatible license. System Management Software is generally complex and makes platform management only
part of a much larger management picture. However, many system administrators and developers rely on
command-line tools that can be scripted and systems that can be micro-managed. IPMItool takes a different
approach to SMS and provides a completely command-line oriented tool. Therefore, it is not designed to
replace the OpenIPMI library. Where possible, IPMItool supports printing comma-separated values for output to
facilitate parsing by other scripts or programs. It is designed to run quick command-response functions that can
be as simple as turning the system on or off or as complex as reading in the sensor data records and extracting
and printing detailed sensor information for each record.
SNMP
SNMP management provides remote access by SNMP-compliant entities to monitor and control network
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