Description of problem: "ipmievd" uses the count of events to detect new events. When the SEL buffer is full, no new message are logged and critical messages may be ignored. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): ipmitool-1.8.9 How reproducible: 100% reproducible Steps to Reproduce: 1. Run the ipmievd # ipmievd -I open sel daemon 2. clear the sel: # ipmitool sel clear 3. Fill-in the SEL buffer with events # for i in `seq 900` ; do ipmitool event `echo $(( $i % 3 +1 ))` ; done Actual results: Once the SEL is full, IPMI will log no more Expected results: "ipmievd" should warn the sysadmin when the buffer becomes full so the sysadmin can clear the SEL buffer. Additional info: The role of the daemon "ipmievd" is to monitor the IPMI SEL list and send corresponding events to syslog. If the SEL buffer become full, IPMI will stop logging new events. There is a mechanism in the IPMI specification to help monitoring the status of the SEL buffer and a flag that indicates when the buffer is full so that events had to be dropped. This is part of the data returned by "Get SEL Info Command" as defined in the IPMI 2.0 specification (section 31.2, page 386). The attached patch improves "ipmievd" to monitor the percentage used in the SEL buffer and log warnings when the percentage is above a 80% and every time the percentage used increases above 80% and also log another alert syslog message when "overflow" occurs. 1) If the percentage used is above 80% a LOG_WARNING is emitted: "SEL buffer used at nn%, please consider clearing the SEL buffer" 2) A new LOG_WARNING is emitted for any increase of percentage used above 80% (eg. a new messages will be logged for 81%, 82%, ... 99%) 3) If the percentage decreases, no warning is emitted 4) If the "overflow" flag is set, a LOG_ALERT is emitted "SEL buffer overflow, no SEL message can be logged until the SEL buffer is cleared" Then it would be the sysadmin's responsibility to clear the SEL buffer (possibly after saving the log of events to a file), but at least "ipmievd" provides a mechanism to help diagnosing before the SEL buffer becomes full.
Created attachment 312344 [details] Patch to implement the functionality described
Release note added. If any revisions are required, please set the "requires_release_notes" flag to "?" and edit the "Release Notes" field accordingly. All revisions will be proofread by the Engineering Content Services team. New Contents: * The ipmievd, under certain conditions, did not log any new messages to the SEL buffer, which could include possible critical messages. In these updated OpenIPMI packages, the system administrator will be warned of the fact that ipmievd will soon be unable to log further messages, via syslog overflow messages, before the SEL buffer becomes full. In addition, if this situation has already occurred, then syslog overflow messages will be logged stating that the buffer has already become full.
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2009-0186.html