NAME
bmc-config - configure BMC values
SYNOPSIS
bmc-config [OPTION...]
DESCRIPTION
Bmc-config is used to get and set BMC configuration parameters, such as
usernames, passwords, networking information, security, Serial-over-LAN
(SOL), and other core IPMI fields. This configuration is required
before most IPMI tools can be used to access a machine remotely.
The majority of configuration operations require ADMIN privilege when
using bmc-config out-of-band. Although connecting via a user with ADMIN
privileges is not required for out-of-band use, the vast majority of
configuration options will not be retrieved or set.
For configuration of platform event filtering (PEF), sensors, or
chassis, please see the pef-config(8), ipmi-sensors-config(8), or ipmi-
chassis-config(8) tools respectively.
See GENERAL USE below for a description on how most will want to use
Bmc-config.
GENERAL OPTIONS
The following options are general options for configuring IPMI
communication and executing general tool commands.
-D, --driver-type=IPMIDRIVER
Specify the driver type to use instead of doing an auto
selection. The currently available outofband drivers are LAN
and LAN_2_0, which perform IPMI 1.5 and IPMI 2.0 respectively.
The currently available inband drivers are KCS, SSIF, OPENIPMI,
and SUNBMC.
--disable-auto-probe
Do not probe in-band IPMI devices for default settings.
--driver-address=DRIVER-ADDRESS
Specify the in-band driver address to be used instead of the
probed value. DRIVER-ADDRESS should be prefixed with "0x" for a
hex value and ’0’ for an octal value.
--driver-device=DEVICE
Specify the in-band driver device path to be used instead of the
probed path.
--register-spacing=REGISTER-SPACING
Specify the in-band driver register spacing instead of the
probed value.
-h, --hostname=IPMIHOST1,IPMIHOST2,...
Specify the remote host(s) to communicate with. Multiple
hostnames may be separated by comma or may be specified in a
range format; see HOSTRANGED SUPPORT below.
-u, --username=USERNAME
Specify the username to use when authenticating with the remote
host. If not specified, a null (i.e. anonymous) username is
assumed. The user must have atleast ADMIN privileges in order
for this tool to operate fully.
-p, --password=PASSWORD
Specify the password to use when authenticationg with the remote
host. If not specified, a null password is assumed. Maximum
password length is 16 for IPMI 1.5 and 20 for IPMI 2.0.
-P, --password-prompt
Prompt for password to avoid possibility of listing it in
process lists.
-k, --k-g=K_G
Specify the K_g BMC key to use when authenticating with the
remote host for IPMI 2.0. If not specified, a null key is
assumed. To input the key in hexadecimal form, prefix the string
with ’0x’. E.g., the key ’abc’ can be entered with the either
the string ’abc’ or the string ’0x616263’
-K, --k-g-prompt
Prompt for k-g to avoid possibility of listing it in process
lists.
--session-timeout=MILLISECONDS
Specify the session timeout in milliseconds. Defaults to 20000
milliseconds (20 seconds) if not specified.
--retransmission-timeout=MILLISECONDS
Specify the packet retransmission timeout in milliseconds.
Defaults to 1000 milliseconds (1 second) if not specified. The
retransmission timeout cannot be larger than the session
timeout.
-a, --authentication-type=AUTHENTICATION-TYPE
Specify the IPMI 1.5 authentication type to use. The currently
available authentication types are NONE, STRAIGHT_PASSWORD_KEY,
MD2, and MD5. Defaults to MD5 if not specified.
-I, --cipher-suite-id=CIPHER-SUITE-ID
Specify the IPMI 2.0 cipher suite ID to use. The Cipher Suite ID
identifies a set of authentication, integrity, and
confidentiality algorithms to use for IPMI 2.0 communication.
The authentication algorithm identifies the algorithm to use for
session setup, the integrity algorithm identifies the algorithm
to use for session packet signatures, and the confidentiality
algorithm identifies the algorithm to use for payload
encryption. Defaults to cipher suite ID 3 if not specified. The
following cipher suite ids are currently supported:
0 - Authentication Algorithm = None; Integrity Algorithm = None;
Confidentiality Algorithm = None
1 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-SHA1; Integrity Algorithm =
None; Confidentiality Algorithm = None
2 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-SHA1; Integrity Algorithm =
HMAC-SHA1-96; Confidentiality Algorithm = None
3 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-SHA1; Integrity Algorithm =
HMAC-SHA1-96; Confidentiality Algorithm = AES-CBC-128
6 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-MD5; Integrity Algorithm =
None; Confidentiality Algorithm = None
7 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-MD5; Integrity Algorithm =
HMAC-MD5-128; Confidentiality Algorithm = None
8 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-MD5; Integrity Algorithm =
HMAC-MD5-128; Confidentiality Algorithm = AES-CBC-128
11 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-MD5; Integrity Algorithm =
MD5-128; Confidentiality Algorithm = None
12 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-MD5; Integrity Algorithm =
MD5-128; Confidentiality Algorithm = AES-CBC-128
-l, --privilege-level=PRIVILEGE-LEVEL
Specify the privilege level to be used. The currently available
privilege levels are USER, OPERATOR, and ADMIN. Defaults to
ADMIN if not specified.
--config-file=FILE
Specify an alternate configuration file.
-W, --workaround-flags=WORKAROUNDS
Specify workarounds to vendor compliance issues. Multiple
workarounds can be specified separated by commas. See
WORKAROUNDS below for a list of available workarounds.
--debug
Turn on debugging.
-?, --help
Output a help list and exit.
--usage
Output a usage message and exit.
-V, --version
Output the program version and exit.
CONFIG OPTIONS
The following options are used to read, write, and find differences in
configuration values.
-o, --checkout
Fetch configuration information.
-c, --commit
Update configuration information from a config file or key
pairs.
-d, --diff
Show differences between stored information and a config file or
key pairs.
-n FILENAME, --filename=FILENAME
Specify a config file for checkout/commit/diff.
-e "KEY=VALUE", --key-pair="KEY=VALUE"
Specify KEY=VALUE pairs for checkout/commit/diff. Specify KEY by
SectionName:FieldName. This option can be used multiple times.
On commit, any KEY=VALUE pairs will overwrite any pairs
specified in a file with --filename.
-S "SECTION", --section="SECTION"
Specify a SECTION for checkout. This option can be used multiple
times.
-L, --listsections
List available sections for checkout.
-v, --verbose
Output additional detailed information. In general will output
more detailed information about what fields can and cannot be
checked out, committed, etc. When used with --checkout,
additional uncommon, unconfigurable, and/or unused fields may be
output.
HOSTRANGED OPTIONS
The following options manipulate hostranged output. See HOSTRANGED
SUPPORT below for additional information on hostranges.
-B, --buffer-output
Buffer hostranged output. For each node, buffer standard output
until the node has completed its IPMI operation. When specifying
this option, data may appear to output slower to the user since
the the entire IPMI operation must complete before any data can
be output. See HOSTRANGED SUPPORT below for additional
information.
-C, --consolidate-output
Consolidate hostranged output. The complete standard output from
every node specified will be consolidated so that nodes with
identical output are not output twice. A header will list those
nodes with the consolidated output. When this option is
specified, no output can be seen until the IPMI operations to
all nodes has completed. If the user breaks out of the program
early, all currently consolidated output will be dumped. See
HOSTRANGED SUPPORT below for additional information.
-F, --fanout
Specify multiple host fanout. A "sliding window" (or fanout)
algorithm is used for parallel IPMI communication so that slower
nodes or timed out nodes will not impede parallel communication.
The maximum number of threads available at the same time is
limited by the fanout. The default is 64.
-E, --eliminate
Eliminate hosts determined as undetected by ipmidetect. This
attempts to remove the common issue of hostranged execution
timing out due to several nodes being removed from service in a
large cluster. The ipmidetectd daemon must be running on the
node executing the command.
--always-prefix
Always prefix output, even if only one host is specified or
communicating in-band. This option is primarily useful for
scripting purposes. Option will be ignored if specified with the
-C option.
GENERAL USE
Most users of will want to:
A) Run with --checkout to get a copy of the current configuration and
store it in a file. The standard output can be redirected to a file or
a file can be specified with the --filename option.
B) Edit the configuration file with an editor.
C) Commit the configuration back using the --commit option and
specifying the configuration file with the --filename option. The
configuration can be committed to multiple hosts in parallel via the
hostrange support.
Comments throughout the checked out file will give instructions on how
to configure the fields. The bmc-config.conf(5) also provides
additional information on the meaning of different fields.
For users with large clusters or sets of nodes, you may wish to use the
same configuration file for all nodes. The one problem with this is
that the IP address and MAC address will be different on each node in
your cluster and thus can’t be configured through the same config file.
The IP address and MAC address in your config file may be overwritten
on the command line using --key-pair option. The following example
could be used in a script to configure each node in a cluster with the
same BMC config file. The script only needs to determine the correct IP
address and MAC address to use.
# bmc-config --commit -k Lan_Conf:Ip_Address=$MY_IP -k
Lan_Conf:Mac_Address=$MY_MAC -n my_bmc.conf
BMC-CONFIG SPECIAL CASE CONFIGURATION INFORMATION
The UserN:Password fields (where N is a number) cannot be checked out
on some systems, therefore the checked out value will always be blank.
The UserN:Enable_User field (where N is a number) cannot be checked out
on older IPMI systems, therefore the checked out value will sometime be
blank. The UserN:Lan_Session_Limit and UserN:Serial_Session_Limit
fields (where N is a number) cannot be checked out on some systems,
therefore the checked out value will always be blank. If not specified
in later commits of configurations, the field may be reset to 0 due to
a requirement that other fields (configured along with the session
limit) will require an input value for the session limit. Under most
conditions, it is not necessary to set this field and most users may
choose to ignore it. This field is considered optional by IPMI
standards, and may result in errors when attempting to configure it to
a non-zero value. If errors to occur, setting the value back to 0
should resolve problems. The fields Lan_Conf:IP_Address and
Lan_Conf:MAC_Address cannot be committed in parallel via hostrange
support. Each machine must be configured with a unique IP Address and
MAC Address tuple, therefore we disallow this configuration in bmc-
config. On some motherboards, Lan_Conf:MAC_Address may be read only
and the MAC address is automatically configured. On some motherboards,
a number of user configuration fields cannot be read or configured
until after a non-null username or non-null password is configured. In
some of these cases, an appropriate output in the config file will
indicate this situation. However, not all motherboard corner cases may
be detected. Users may wish to play around with the ordering of fields
to work around these problems. On some motherboards, OEM
Authentication in Lan_Conf_Auth cannot be enabled. However, the default
motherboard settings have these fields enabled. Users are advised to
disable all OEM Authentication in this section.
HOSTRANGED SUPPORT
Multiple hosts can be input either as an explicit comma separated lists
of hosts or a range of hostnames in the general form: prefix[n-m,l-
k,...], where n < m and l < k, etc. The later form should not be
confused with regular expression character classes (also denoted by
[]). For example, foo[19] does not represent foo1 or foo9, but rather
represents a degenerate range: foo19.
This range syntax is meant only as a convenience on clusters with a
prefixNN naming convention and specification of ranges should not be
considered necessary -- the list foo1,foo9 could be specified as such,
or by the range foo[1,9].
Some examples of range usage follow:
foo[01-05] instead of foo01,foo02,foo03,foo04,foo05
foo[7,9-10] instead of foo7,foo9,foo10
foo[0-3] instead of foo0,foo1,foo2,foo3
As a reminder to the reader, some shells will interpret brackets ([ and
]) for pattern matching. Depending on your shell, it may be necessary
to enclose ranged lists within quotes.
By default, standard output from each node specified will be output
with the hostname prepended to each line. Although this output is
readable in many situations, it may be difficult to read in other
situations. For example, output from multiple nodes may be mixed
together. The -B and -C options can be used to change this default.
In-band IPMI Communication will be used when the host "localhost" is
specified. This allows the user to add the localhost into the
hostranged output.
GENERAL TROUBLESHOOTING
Most often, IPMI over LAN problems involve a misconfiguration of the
remote machine’s BMC. Double check to make sure the following are
configured properly in the remote machine’s BMC: IP address, MAC
address, subnet mask, username, user enablement, user privilege,
password, LAN privilege, LAN enablement, and allowed authentication
type(s). For IPMI 2.0 connections, double check to make sure the cipher
suite privilege(s) and K_g key are configured properly. The bmc-
config(8) tool can be used to check and/or change these configuration
settings.
The following are common issues for given error messages:
"username invalid" - The username entered (or a NULL username if none
was entered) is not available on the remote machine. It may also be
possible the remote BMC’s username configuration is incorrect.
"password invalid" - The password entered (or a NULL password if none
was entered) is not correct. It may also be possible the password for
the user is not correctly configured on the remote BMC.
"password verification timeout" - Password verification has timed out.
A "password invalid" error (described above) or a generic "session
timeout" (described below) occurred. During this point in the protocol
it cannot be differentiated which occurred.
"k_g invalid" - The K_g key entered (or a NULL K_g key if none was
entered) is not correct. It may also be possible the K_g key is not
correctly configured on the remote BMC.
"privilege level insufficient" - An IPMI command requires a higher user
privilege than the one authenticated with. Please try to authenticate
with a higher privilege. This may require authenticating to a different
user which has a higher maximum privilege.
"privilege level cannot be obtained for this user" - The privilege
level you are attempting to authenticate with is higher than the
maximum allowed for this user. Please try again with a lower privilege.
It may also be possible the maximum privilege level allowed for a user
is not configured properly on the remote BMC.
"authentication type unavailable for attempted privilege level" - The
authentication type you wish to authenticate with is not available for
this privilege level. Please try again with an alternate authentication
type or alternate privilege level. It may also be possible the
available authentication types you can authenticate with are not
correctly configured on the remote BMC.
"cipher suite id unavailable" - The cipher suite id you wish to
authenticate with is not available on the remote BMC. Please try again
with an alternate cipher suite id. It may also be possible the
available cipher suite ids are not correctly configured on the remote
BMC.
"ipmi 2.0 unavailable" - IPMI 2.0 was not discovered on the remote
machine. Please try to use IPMI 1.5 instead.
"connection timeout" - Initial IPMI communication failed. A number of
potential errors are possible, including an invalid hostname specified,
an IPMI IP address cannot be resolved, IPMI is not enabled on the
remote server, the network connection is bad, etc. Please verify
configuration and connectivity.
"session timeout" - The IPMI session has timed out. Please reconnect.
If IPMI over LAN continually times out, you may wish to increase the
retransmission timeout. Some remote BMCs are considerably slower than
others.
Please see WORKAROUNDS below to also if there are any vendor specific
bugs that have been discovered and worked around.
WORKAROUNDS
With so many different vendors implementing their own IPMI solutions,
different vendors may implement their IPMI protocols incorrectly. The
following lists the handful of compliance issues discovered and the
workarounds currently supported.
When possible, workarounds have been implemented so they will be
transparent to the user. However, some will require the user to specify
a workaround be used via the -W option.
The hardware listed below may only indicate the hardware that a problem
was discovered on. Newer versions of hardware may fix the problems
indicated below. Similar machines from vendors may or may not exhibit
the same problems.
Intel SR870BN4: BMCs would not respond to retransmissions of a Get
Session Challenge Request if a previous Get Session Challenge response
was lost. Resolved by sending retransmitted Get Session Challenge
requests from a different source port. Automatically handled.
Tyan S2882 with m3289 BMC: After the IPMI session is brought up, packet
responses return empty session IDs to the client. This will likely
cause "session timeout" errors to occur. In order to work around this
issue, the "idzero" workaround must be specified. The option will allow
empty session IDs to be accepted by the client.
Dell PowerEdge 2850,SC1425: When Per-Message Authentication is
disabled, packet responses contain non-null authentication data (when
it should in fact be null). This will likely cause "session timeout"
errors to occur. In order to work around this issue, the
"unexpectedauth" workaround must be specified. The option will allow
unexpected non-null authcodes to be checked as though they were
expected. This compliance bug is confirmed to be fixed on newer
firmware.
IBM eServer 325: The remote BMC will advertise that Per Message
Authentication is disabled, but actually require it for the protocol.
This will likely cause "session timeout" errors to occur. In order to
work around this issue, the "forcepermsg" workaround must be specified.
The option will force Per Message Authentication to be used no matter
what is advertised by the remote BMC.
Supermicro H8QME with SIMSO daughter card: The remote BMC will
advertise that Per Message Authentication is disabled, but actually
require it for the protocol. Automatically handled.
Asus P5M2/P5MT-R/RS162-E4/RX4: The motherboard does not properly report
username capabilities and/or K_g status. This will likely cause
"username invalid" or "k_g invalid" errors to occur. In order to work
around this issue, the "authcap" workaround must be specified.
Intel SR1520ML/X38ML: The motherboard does not properly report username
capabilities and/or K_g status. This will likely cause "username
invalid" or "k_g invalid" errors to occur. In order to work around this
issue, the "authcap" workaround must be specified.
Sun ILOM 1.0/2.0: The session sequence numbers returned for IPMI 1.5
sessions are the wrong endian on some systems running ILOM 1.0/2.0.
The incorrect endian depends on the service processor endianness. This
will likely cause "session timeout" errors to occur. In order to work
around this issue, the "endianseq" workaround must be specified.
Sun Fire 2200/4150/4450 with ELOM: The motherboard does not properly
report username capabilities. This will likely cause "username invalid"
errors to occur. In order to work around this issue, the "authcap"
workaround must be specified.
Intel SE7520AF2 with Intel Server Management Module (Professional
Edition): There are a number of Intel IPMI 2.0 authentication bugs.
These problems may cause "username invalid", "password invalid", or
"k_g invalid" errors to occur. They can be worked around by specifying
the "intel20" workaround. The workarounds include padding of usernames,
automatic acceptance of a RAKP 4 response integrity check when using
the integrity algorithm MD5-128, and password truncation if the
authentication algorithm is HMAC-MD5-128.
Supermicro H8QME with SIMSO daughter card: There are several Supermicro
IPMI 2.0 bugs on early firmware revisions which can be worked around
using the "supermicro20" workaround. These problems may cause "password
invalid" errors to occur. These compliance bugs are confirmed to be
fixed on newer firmware.
Sun Fire 4100/4200/4500 with ILOM: There are several Sun IPMI 2.0 bugs.
These problems may cause "password invalid" or "bmc error" errors to
occur. They can be worked around by specifying the "sun20" workaround.
The workarounds include handling invalid lengthed hash keys, improperly
hashed keys, and invalid cipher suite records.
Inventec 5441, Supermicro X8DTH: The privilege level sent during the
Open Session stage of an IPMI 2.0 connection is used for hashing keys
instead of the privilege level sent during the RAKP1 connection stage.
This may cause "password invalid" or "bad rmcpplus status code" errors
to occur. It can be worked around by specifying the "opensesspriv"
workaround.
EXAMPLES
# bmc-config --checkout
Output all configuration information to the console.
# bmc-config --checkout --filename=bmc-data1.conf
Store all configuration information in bmc-data1.conf.
# bmc-config --diff --filename=bmc-data2.conf
Show all difference between the current configuration and the bmc-
data2.conf file.
# bmc-config --diff --key-
pair="lan_conf_misc:gratuitous_arp_interval=8"
Show difference with the current configuration and the
’lan_conf_misc:gratuitous_arp_interval’ of value ’8’.
# bmc-config --commit --filename=bmc-data1.conf
Commit all configuration values from the bmc-data1.conf file.
# bmc-config --commit --key-
pair="lan_conf_misc:gratuitous_arp_interval=4"
Commit key ’lan_conf_misc:gratuitous_arp_interval’ of value ’4’.
# bmc-config --commit --filename=bmc-data-updt.conf --key-
pair="lan_conf_misc:gratuitous_arp_interval=4"
Commit all configuration values from bmc-data-updt.conf and key
’lan_conf_misc:gratuitous_arp_interval’ of value ’4’.
KNOWN ISSUES
On older operating systems, if you input your username, password, and
other potentially security relevant information on the command line,
this information may be discovered by other users when using tools like
the ps(1) command or looking in the /proc file system. It is generally
more secure to input password information with options like the -P or
-K options. Configuring security relevant information in the FreeIPMI
configuration file would also be an appropriate way to hide this
information.
In order to prevent brute force attacks, some BMCs will temporarily
"lock up" after a number of remote authentication errors. You may need
to wait awhile in order to this temporary "lock up" to pass before you
may authenticate again.
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to <freeipmi-users@gnu.org> or <freeipmi-devel@gnu.org>.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2003-2008 FreeIPMI Core Team.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
option) any later version.
SEE ALSO
bmc-config.conf(5), freeipmi(7), pef-config(8), ipmi-sensors-config(8),
ipmi-chassis-config(8)
http://www.gnu.org/software/freeipmi/