Connecting to DRAC Consoles using the Pseudo Connector and IPMI SOL

From TDiWiki

Serial Over LAN (SOL) is part of the IPMI protocol. Some DRAC and other Baseboard Management Controllers support this method of connecting to the character cell/serial console of the operating system. When available, connections to these devices should be done using SSH but in those cases where SSH is not available, SOL is the alternative. For a complete specification of the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) go to this URL on the Intel Web site.

Unfortunately our experience with BMCs supporting IPMI SOL indicate that the associated software and systems are somewhat fragile in their behavior and that securing the connection against others was not a design criteria. This means that the method of making and securing a connection requires more than simply making the connection.

The instructions in this article work best with IPMI v2 or better. They may work with IPMI v1.5 in some situations. If you only have v1.5, test carefully.

At a high level, the steps to configuring these systems are:

1. Configure your DRAC or other BMC to have a known username and password
2. Install an appropriate IPMI command line tool
3. From the command line on the system where ConsoleWorks is installed, test that the tool can successfully make an SOL connection
4. Download from TDi or develop an appropriate Pseudo Console script and place the Pseudo Console script in the correct location
5. Develop Events and Actions to handle the known connection error conditions placing the Events in a Scan (we suggest the name DRAC_IPMI) and the Actions in the appropriate Actions directory
6. Configure a Console using the Pseudo Console connector and the previously installed script
7. Associate the Events and Actions that handle the known connection error conditions with this new Console
8. Test

For the location of the Pseudo script directory and other details about configuring the items above, see the ConsoleWorks help.

IPMI Tool

The standard IPMI tool that is available for download from Sourceforge at this URL will work well on Linux system. The same IPMI tool is available for Sun Solaris systems at this URL on the Sun web site.

Unfortunately the standard IPMI tool for MS Windows that is available from Sourceforge will not function correctly in a ConsoleWorks Pseudo Console script. We have modified the program to function correctly on MS Windows and made it available for download here. Place the contents of this zip file in a directory of your choice. We suggest a directory called ipmitool be places in the "Program Files" directory. Note that if you have install cygwin on the ConsoleWorks server machine there may be a .dll conflict. Contact support to help resolve this problem should it occur.

The Pseudo Console Script

Download a Pseudo Console Script set for Unix systems here.

Download a Pseudo Console Script set for Windows here. Note that there needs to be a copy of this script for each DRAC and that the host DNS name or IP address must be placed in the script.

Please note that these scripts will need to be edited to run the IPMI tool from the correct location and to accommodate other localizations.

The Error Condition Events and Actions

There are a few known device conditions that ConsoleWorks needs to accommodate. They have to do with unexpected states of the DRAC at console startup and with the console being connected to some other user. There may be others that we have not have identified. We would appreciate an email to support@tditechnologies.com should you discover any such situation. Please include a complete log of the commands sent and the response from the DRAC so that we can build an appropriate Event/Action.