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I'm working with server automation tools on some Dell C2100 and C1100 servers. What I intend to do is connecting via Serial Over Lan using ipmi.

A few weeks ago, I was able to connect to one of my servers using ipmi-console (from freeipmi), like this:

ipmi-console -h IPADDRESS -u USER -P

This started up a SOL connection, and this way I was able to automate some interactions with the server's BIOS settings and other stuff.

However, a few days later, the same script didn't work anymore. It just says "[SOL established]", and that's it: the SOL connection never shows any feedback, and it stays idle until I close the connection.

My question is: what could possibly have changed that the SOL connection is not working anymore.

I obviously checked for anything related to SOL and IPMI, both in BIOS settings and using BMC web GUI. But everything looks normal, and I didn't recall to have changed anything there between the time the connections worked and then they stopped working. IDK what else to check, and it just fails w/o errors anywhere.

Perhaps this is a common thing with IPMI and/or SOL, but I frankly don't understand it. So, any pointer would be nice.

Thanks in advance.

0andriy
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Daniel Cantarin
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2 Answers2

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FreeIPMI maintainer here. When no data is being output, it is typically a configuration problem. Assuming none of that changed, one idea.

On some motherboards, I've seen the BMC internally "lose its connection" to the serial chip, thus it doesn't get any serial data and thus doesn't have anything to send out. Unfortunately a hard power reset is often needed to solve this (b/c the BMC always is "on" via standby power, it must be a hard reset to reset it). Hard resetting the BMC directly might work as well, you can do this in FreeIPMI via bmc-device --cold-reset.

Albert Chu
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  • Well... "cold-reset" didn't did the trick, so the hard power reset is my last hope. Just to be clear: by "hard power reset" you mean "temporarily disconnect the server from the power grid", or it should just be enough by some remote reset option (like "cycle" or "power off")? – Daniel Cantarin Mar 01 '18 at 20:03
  • Yeah, "disconnect from power" is what I mean by a hard reset. You can always try ipmipower's --reset and see if that works. A button push also may work. But nothing is more assured than than pulling the plug :-) – Albert Chu Mar 02 '18 at 02:43
  • That didn't worked either :( . Thanks anyway Albert. – Daniel Cantarin Mar 02 '18 at 14:42
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Finally, I've found what was going on.

It happened that somehow a value DID change on the BIOS settings, most likely my own mistake: remote connection ability was disabled. That means, it seems, that SOL works, but it doesn't redirect anything. Given that I was able to connect through SOL, it seemed obvious that remote connection ability was enabled.

Once enabled that BIOS setting, everything was back to normal.

BTW: freeipmi is awesome. Thanks for maintaining it Albert.

Daniel Cantarin
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