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I would like to know if it's possible to access the ESXi configuration through vSphere using an dedicated network interface for IPMI connection with the motherboard.

We have some Supermicro boards, specifically X9SCM, with IPMI in a private 10.0.0.0/8 network and we would like to give the ESXi management console some IP address in this network too. But the guests should be able to bridge to a real IP address.

I can only think in some obscure VLAN configuration, but I don't know if I'm right.

Thanks in advance,

Additional Interface:

VLAN 1 - Managament (10.0.0.0/8)

VLAN 10 - Servers (x.y.z.0/26)

Gigabit Ethernet eth0 = VLAN10

Gigabit Ethernet eth1 = Not in use (and not supported by ESXi; it needs an additional e1000e network driver)

Fast Ethernet for IPMI = VLAN1

Vinícius Ferrão
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1 Answers1

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IPMI will give you access to the physical console or serial port as if you were sitting in front of the server.

It's not some magical out-of-band network interface available to the operating system¹.

1: Unless you have IBM servers with IMM2 management interfaces. Then you can actually configure the IMM to forward ports to the internal management interface on the server. Super-handy!

MikeyB
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  • Hello MikeyB. I don't know if its the case. Throught this port we can access a full featured web manager console; with KVM, SOL and etc. So there's much more than a single serial port. – Vinícius Ferrão Jun 20 '13 at 17:47
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    Yeah… that's what I said :) You get the KVM console and a serial port, but there's no direct access as far as the OS is concerned on the SuperMicro hardware. – MikeyB Jun 21 '13 at 04:58
  • Hmm... Now I understand. So it's "almost" an useless port for my situation. Thanks Mikey. Really thanks. – Vinícius Ferrão Jun 21 '13 at 14:21