Bug 141364

Summary:	IPMI on Dell PowerEdge 2850 do not work with redhat kernel
Product:	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3	Reporter:	Petter Reinholdtsen <pere>
Component:	kernel	Assignee:	dff <dff>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:	Brian Brock <bbrock>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	3.0	CC:	peterm, petrides, riel, shillman, tburke, t.h.amundsen
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	FutureFeature
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	x86_64
OS:	Linux
URL:	http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/power/ps4q04-20040204-Murphy.pdf
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Enhancement
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2007-10-19 19:12:45 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Petter Reinholdtsen 2004-11-30 18:08:45 UTC

Description of problem:

  IPMI do not work on Dell PowerEdge 2850 with the default kernel 
from
  RHEL 3.  According to
  <URL: 
http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/power/ps4q04-20040204-Murphy.pdf 
>
  these machines need OpenDPMI driver versjon 33 or newer and the
  ipmi_si_drv kernel module.  This driver is available from
  <URL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/openipmi >.

  IPMI is needed to get HW status info from the machine.  We need 
this
  to be able to monitor and detect problems with this type of 
machine.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

  kernel-2.4.21-20.EL

How reproducible:

  This fails every time.

Steps to Reproduce:

  1. modprobe ipmi_si_drv - fail
  2. modprobe ipmi_kcs_drv - fail
  3. modprobe ipmi_devintf - loads, but fail to find the correct IP 
port

Actual results:

  I got these messages in /var/log/messages

  Nov 30 18:17:59 delltest kernel: ipmi: message handler initialized
  Nov 30 18:18:00 delltest kernel: ipmi: device interface at char 
major 253
  Nov 30 18:22:02 delltest kernel: ipmi_kcs: SPMI table not found.
  Nov 30 18:22:02 delltest kernel: ipmi_kcs: No KCS @ port 0x0ca2
  Nov 30 18:22:02 delltest kernel: ipmi_kcs: Unable to find any KCS 
interfaces

  According to the article, the port to use is 0xca8, and not 0x0ca2.
  The newer driver will detect the correct port to use using DMI
  information.

Expected results:

  I expected a working kernel driver and access to a ipmi device.

Additional info:

  There is a command line tool to access the IPMI device available
  from <URL:http://ipmitool.sourceforge.net/>.  It can be used to 
test
  the device and driver.

Comment 3 Trond H. Amundsen 2005-06-06 13:26:15 UTC

This bug has had "NEW" status for quite some time... Confirmed that it still
doesn't work with kernel 2.4.21-32.0.1. Excepting lm_sensors, IPMI is the only
_open_ standard for hardware monitoring that I know of, and IPMI is far better
than lm_sensors and proprietary vendor software, which tends to be large and
intrusive. Providing of course that the machine has an IPMI device, which
expensive servers like the Dell PE2850 usually do. Any chance that Red Hat will
appreciate working IPMI support in the kernel and upgrade the modules?

IMO one should expect an enterprise OS to be able to harness enterprise-type
hardware, also when it comes to monitoring features, especially if the hardware
complies to open standards.

Comment 4 RHEL Program Management 2007-10-19 19:12:45 UTC

This bug is filed against RHEL 3, which is in maintenance phase.
During the maintenance phase, only security errata and select mission
critical bug fixes will be released for enterprise products. Since
this bug does not meet that criteria, it is now being closed.
 
For more information of the RHEL errata support policy, please visit:
http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/
 
If you feel this bug is indeed mission critical, please contact your
support representative. You may be asked to provide detailed
information on how this bug is affecting you.