[Ipmitool-devel] Unable to use the 'chassis power diag' command

[Rachita Kothiyal]

Hi

I am trying to use ipmitool(1.8.8) on a IBM HS20 blade, running a linux
2.6.21-rc2 kernel. I am able to issue all other commands but when I try
using the 'chassis power diag' command to issue an NMI, it fails with
the following error:

Set Chassis Power Control to Diag failed: Command not supported in present state

Has anyone seen this problem before? Any ideas what might be wrong here?


Thanks
Rachita

[Brian A. Seklecki]

Is it known to work? Is it a BMC limitation?

~BAS

Post by Rachita Kothiyal
I am trying to use ipmitool(1.8.8) on a IBM HS20 blade, running a linux
2.6.21-rc2 kernel. I am able to issue all other commands but when I try
using the 'chassis power diag' command to issue an NMI, it fails with

[Rachita Kothiyal]

Post by Brian A. Seklecki
Is it known to work? Is it a BMC limitation?

Hi Brian,

Its worked for me on other machines. I tried to upgrade the BMC firmware to
1.18 from 1.16, but it still does not work. Am wondering if there is some
setting(in the BMC?) which has disbaled NMIs on the blade?

Thanks
Rachita

Post by Brian A. Seklecki
~BAS

Post by Rachita Kothiyal
I am trying to use ipmitool(1.8.8) on a IBM HS20 blade, running a linux
2.6.21-rc2 kernel. I am able to issue all other commands but when I try
using the 'chassis power diag' command to issue an NMI, it fails with

[Carol Hebert]

Post by Rachita Kothiyal

Post by Brian A. Seklecki
Is it known to work? Is it a BMC limitation?

Hi Brian,
Its worked for me on other machines. I tried to upgrade the BMC firmware to
1.18 from 1.16, but it still does not work. Am wondering if there is some
setting(in the BMC?) which has disbaled NMIs on the blade?
Thanks
Rachita

Post by Brian A. Seklecki
~BAS

Post by Rachita Kothiyal
I am trying to use ipmitool(1.8.8) on a IBM HS20 blade, running a linux
2.6.21-rc2 kernel. I am able to issue all other commands but when I try
using the 'chassis power diag' command to issue an NMI, it fails with

Hi Rachita,

I'm currently leaning toward this being a BIOS issue. I believe the
ipmi spec characterizes this command as "optional" and so the BIOS
vendor may simply not be supporting it. Nevertheless, I'm trying to
track down the right BIOS folks for the definitive answer. I hope to
have some information on this soon.

Thanks,

Carol Hebert

[Carol Hebert]

Hi,

Just a follow-up on my earlier posting regarding the probable reason why
"ipmitool chassis power diag" doesn't work on the HS20 (i.e. it's an
optional command the BMC vendor does not support). We've confirmed via
discussions with the vendor that the optional "pulse Diagnostic
Interrupt" (aka ipmitool's chassis power diag command) is indeed not
currently supported. We're working with the vendor to see if they can
support it in a future f/w release.

Thanks,

Carol Hebert

[Doug Ambrisko]

Carol Hebert writes:
| Just a follow-up on my earlier posting regarding the probable reason why
| "ipmitool chassis power diag" doesn't work on the HS20 (i.e. it's an
| optional command the BMC vendor does not support). We've confirmed via
| discussions with the vendor that the optional "pulse Diagnostic
| Interrupt" (aka ipmitool's chassis power diag command) is indeed not
| currently supported. We're working with the vendor to see if they can
| support it in a future f/w release.

FWIW, if the HW is Intel ICH based and if the BMC is doing the NMI via
the PCI slot, then the chipset needs to be configured to allow the NMI
to go through to the CPU. I've found some systems don't enable the
chaining of a PCI NMI to the CPU NMI so then the NMI doesn't work.
I wrote some code to flip the bit in the ICH to enable it. Note that
it appears to be a one shot so you can't get a 2nd NMI via the PCI.

Doug A.