Page 1
www.dell.com/powersolutions Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, November 2006. Copyright © 2006 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. DELL POWER SOLUTIONS 93
SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT
Dell OpenManage IT Assistant 8.0 enables administra-
tors to manage Dell and non-Dell agentless servers that
support Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI)
1.5 and later. IPMI provides autonomous monitoring and
recovery features implemented directly in platform manage-
ment hardware and firmware, without requiring additional
instrumentation agents. Its inventory, monitoring, logging,
and recovery control functions are available independent
of a system’s main processors, BIOS, and OS, so platform
management functions can be available when the system
is powered down, and administrators can obtain platform
status information and initiate recovery actions when sys-
tems management software and normal in-band manage-
ment mechanisms are unavailable.
IT Assistant 8.0 uses IPMI Over LAN Remote Man-
agement and Control Protocol (RMCP) messaging in con-
junction with the Simple Network Management Protocol
(SNMP) and Common Information Model (CIM) to connect
to baseboard management controllers (BMCs). The IPMI
out-of-band channel can be available even when the system
is powered down or has no OS installed.
Using IT Assistant, administrators can discover sys-
tems, monitor system health, view hardware logs, and
perform power control tasks. The example usages of IT
Assistant described in this article do not require third-
party components (for example, Dell OpenManage Server
Administrator) to be installed on the managed systems.
Discovering systems
Administrators can configure IT Assistant to obtain system
inventory, status, and hardware log information through the
IPMI protocol based on the system and BMC IP addresses.
This information adds to that provided by other in-band
agents, such as the Dell OpenManage Server Administrator
agent, SNMP management information base 2 (MIB2), and
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) provider.
After configuration, IT Assistant can use the creden-
tials provided in the discovery range to retrieve system
information from the BMC using IPMI Over LAN. This pro-
cess does not require a Server Administrator agent on the
server, but if one has been installed, IT Assistant can col-
lect information from the BMC and agent asynchronously,
BY SURESH JOHN
Monitoring and Managing Agentless Servers Using Dell OpenManage IT Assistant 8.0 with IPMI
Dell OpenManage™ IT Assistant 8.0 introduces several features, including support for
system discovery using the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) proto-
col. This article explores how IT Assistant IPMI capabilities can be used to remotely
monitor and manage Dell™ and non-Dell agentless servers.
Related Categories:
Benchmarks
Dell OpenManage
Dell PowerEdge servers
Intelligent Platform
Management Interface (IPMI)
Remote management
Systems management
Visit www.dell.com/powersolutions
for the complete category index.
Page 2
SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT
DELL POWER SOLUTIONS Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, November 2006. Copyright © 2006 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. November 200694
then use the host name or service tag to map the information from
both sources to a single server. Figure 1 illustrates this discovery
process. (Although Server Administrator agents provide more infor-
mation than the BMC, that information is not available if the system
is powered down.)
Administrators can configure IT Assistant to discover a system
through IPMI using the New Discovery Wizard, which they can
access by selecting Discovery and Monitoring>Ranges, right-clicking
“Include Ranges” in the left pane, and selecting “New Include
Range.” They can then add the BMC IP address to the discovery
ranges, enable IPMI discovery, and provide the BMC username and
password (see Figure 2). For systems supporting IPMI 2.0 (such
as ninth-generation Dell PowerEdge™ servers), they can also pro-
vide a key generator (KG) key—a security mechanism that enables
encrypted traffic between the BMC and management station.
Note: IPMI Over LAN uses the UDP-based RMCP, which
communicates over port 623. For firewall-protected systems,
administrators should ensure that this port is available for IPMI
Over LAN traffic.
Monitoring system health
In addition to basic inventory information such as service tag, host
name, OS, and firmware version, IT Assistant can monitor system
health over IPMI—for example, if the
server temperature is above normal,
the health status displays a warning.
In addition to obtaining regular system
health updates using scheduled status
polls, IT Assistant can obtain health
updates dynamically whenever the
health status changes. To use this fea-
ture, administrators must set the BMC
Platform Event Trap (PET) destination
to the management station IP address.
After receiving a PET, IT Assistant car-
ries out a status polling of the system,
connects to the BMC to retrieve the
chassis status, and displays a warning
with the device health status.
Note: Systems using IPMI 1.5 have limited status capa-
bilities, including no critical state. IPMI 1.5 also does not take
redundancy into account, so it might show a system as healthy
even when one of the redundant power supplies has failed.
Systems using IPMI 2.0 can obtain comprehensive device status
information.
Viewing hardware logs
IT Assistant allows administrators to use IPMI to view BMC
system event logs (SELs) and sensor data records (SDRs), which
contain information about the type and number of sensors in the
platform, sensor threshold support, event-generation capabilities,
and the types of readings the sensor provides. Every managed
node event creates a SEL entry. Managing these logging functions
through IPMI can help ensure that this information is available
following a failure that disables the system processors.
Figure 1. Discovering a system with Dell OpenManage IT Assistant using IPMI
Dell OpenManageIT Assistant
Dell OpenManageServer Administrator agent
BMC
SNMP/CIM
IPMI Over LAN
BMC network
interface card
System network
interface card
Note: The BMC network interface card could be a dedicated card or a LAN on Motherboard in shared mode.
Figure 2. Configuring IPMI discovery with the Dell OpenManage IT Assistant New
Discovery Wizard
Figure 3. Viewing hardware logs in Dell OpenManage IT Assistant using IPMI
Page 3
SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT
www.dell.com/powersolutions Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, November 2006. Copyright © 2006 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. DELL POWER SOLUTIONS 95
IT Assistant correlates SELs and SDRs in the hardware logs.
Administrators can easily view an event by clicking the Hardware
Logs tab for the device (see Figure 3).
Performing power control tasks
Administrators can use IT Assistant with IPMI to perform tasks
such as power cycling, power resetting, and powering up or down.
IT Assistant uses the ipmish utility to carry out scheduled power
control tasks; for this utility to be available, the BMC management
utility must be installed on the management station.
Administrators can create a power operations task using the
New Task Wizard by selecting Manage>Tasks, right-clicking
“Command Line Task” in the left pane, and selecting “New Task.”
They can then select “IPMI Command Line” from the Type menu
(see Figure 4) and complete the wizard, choosing whether to
schedule the task or run it immediately, and providing the BMC
username and password along with the KG key for systems sup-
porting IPMI 2.0.
Troubleshooting IPMI connectivity
Administrators may occasionally encounter IPMI connectivity prob-
lems such as the following, which can occur when IT Assistant
cannot contact the device using RMCP or when it is using invalid
credentials:
• IT Assistant discovers a device, but displays it with no category
or inventory information except IP address and name. • IT Assistant discovers a device and categorizes it as a server, but
clicking the Hardware Logs tab for the device returns an error. • IT Assistant discovers and categorizes a device, but displays
its status as unknown. • IT Assistant fails to discover a device.
Administrators can use the IPMI Connectivity test, part of
the IT Assistant Troubleshooting Tool, to help diagnose and
resolve these problems (see Figure 5). This test sends an RMCP
ping packet to the BMC to determine whether it can successfully
reply. If it can, IT Assistant attempts to connect to the BMC using
the credentials provided in the discovery range. If IT Assistant
has discovered the device, administrators can launch the Trou-
bleshooting Tool by right-clicking on the device and selecting
“Troubleshooting Tool”; otherwise, they can do so by selecting
Tools>Troubleshooting Tool.
Monitoring and managing servers flexibly
Dell OpenManage IT Assistant 8.0 enables administrators to carry
out operations such as discovering systems, monitoring system health,
viewing hardware logs, and performing power control tasks on both
Dell and non-Dell agentless servers through IPMI. Using these features
can provide administrators with additional flexibility in carrying out
basic system monitoring and management tasks.
Suresh John is a senior engineering analyst with the Dell OpenManage
Group at the Dell Bangalore Development Center, and has nine years of
experience designing and developing systems management applications.
Suresh has a bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication from the
University of Kerala in India.
Figure 4. Creating an IPMI task with the Dell OpenManage IT Assistant New Task Wizard
Figure 5. Using the IPMI Connectivity test in the Dell OpenManage IT Assistant
Troubleshooting Tool
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Dell OpenManage IT Assistant User’s Guide:
support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/smitasst
IPMI specification:
www.intel.com/design/servers/ipmi