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My SuperMicro server has 3 Ethernet ports that break down like this:

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I never use the dedicated IPMI port while accessing IPMI capabilities perfectly well via LAN1 along with the installed OS. I use ipmitool on Ubuntu to set up access to the console (IP address, ADMIN pass etc.). My question is if LAN1 give me access to the IPMI console, why even have that dedicated IPMI port? Is there a difference in how those ports allow me to access IPMI? Specificlly, my concern is that accessing IPMI via LAN1 is only feasable so long as the OS (Ubuntu in my case) is not frozen. Which obviouls would be a real issue considering that I only need IPMI if the system crashes. Can someone help me understand this?

codemonkey
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  • its usually exposed to one lan port that you can seperate it from wan that's what i know and usually it works even when the os freeze – djdomi Dec 06 '20 at 20:49

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This system has 2 Ethernet ports, plus an out of band management port that happens to be Ethernet.

Specificlly, my concern is that accessing IPMI via LAN1 is only feasable so long as the OS (Ubuntu in my case) is not frozen.

Ability to manage a server even if the OS is missing or broken is a feature of out of band management. Wired to a dedicated management network, it also can function even if the primary NIC or switch is dead.

Imagine a small embedded computer, say Raspberry Pi size, attached to the server's power button. Has its own CPU and NIC to provide remote management, independent of the health of the larger system. Out of band management is like that, but more integrated into the board.

John Mahowald
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  • That's understood, but if the primary NIC is dead, which happens to be the NIC my server uses to connect to the world, what use is the out of band management port? What could you possibly do through it to get your box back online? Your NIC is dead right? So unless you physically pull the cable out and plug it into the secondary NIC, you won't revive it. That's where the logic of a dedicated IPMI port is not clear to me. Why not just have the 2 NICs? – codemonkey Dec 07 '20 at 23:35
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    @codemonkey In a normal datacenter environment the management port will be connected to a completely different network, and accessed via that other network. – Michael Hampton Dec 08 '20 at 00:01