Reading out system event log

A lot of modern servers write hardware based system information in a System Event Log (SEL). This article describes how to read out such a system event log with ipmitool under Linux.

Reading out IPMI SEL with ipmitool

The system event log can be read out with the following ipmitool command:

ipmitool sel list

Information on the use of ipmitool can be found in the article Configuring IPMI under Linux using ipmitool.

Intel server

The following sample issue comes from an Intel SR2500 server with S5000PAL mainboard:

[root@intel-SR2500 ~]# ipmitool sel list
[...]
fdec | 04/07/2008 | 16:42:15 | Power Unit #0x01 | AC lost | Asserted
fe00 | 04/10/2008 | 14:49:53 | Power Unit #0x01 | AC lost | Deasserted
fe14 | 04/10/2008 | 14:49:54 | Power Supply #0x70 | Presence detected | Asserted
fe28 | 04/10/2008 | 14:49:54 | Power Supply #0x71 | Presence detected | Asserted
fe3c | 04/10/2008 | 14:50:13 | Power Unit #0x02 | Fully Redundant
fe50 | 04/10/2008 | 14:52:49 | Button #0x84 | Power Button pressed | Asserted
fe64 | 04/10/2008 | 14:52:54 | Fan #0x6f | Fully Redundant
[...]

With the option elist (insted of list), the ipmitool outputs the sensor descriptions (here for example Pwr Unit Stat instead of #0x01) instead of the sensor addresses:

[root@intel-SR2500 ~]# ipmitool sel elist
[...]
fdec | 04/07/2008 | 16:42:15 | Power Unit Pwr Unit Stat | AC lost | Asserted
fe00 | 04/10/2008 | 14:49:53 | Power Unit Pwr Unit Stat | AC lost | Deasserted
fe14 | 04/10/2008 | 14:49:54 | Power Supply PS1 Status | Presence detected | Asserted
fe28 | 04/10/2008 | 14:49:54 | Power Supply PS2 Status | Presence detected | Asserted
fe3c | 04/10/2008 | 14:50:13 | Power Unit Power Redundancy | Fully Redundant
fe50 | 04/10/2008 | 14:52:49 | Button Button | Power Button pressed | Asserted
fe64 | 04/10/2008 | 14:52:54 | Fan Fan Redundancy | Fully Redundant
[...]

The article describes further options for reading the SEL on Intel servers: Intel Mainboards System Event Log auslesen.

Supermicro server

The following sample output comes from a Supermicro server with X8DT3-LN4F mainboard:

[root@supermicro-X8DT3-LN4F ~]# ipmitool sel list
   1 | 01/20/2010 | 14:27:45 | Voltage #0x0d | Lower Non-critical going low 
   2 | 01/20/2010 | 14:27:46 | Voltage #0x0d | Lower Critical going low 
   3 | 01/20/2010 | 14:27:46 | Voltage #0x0d | Lower Non-recoverable going low 
   4 | 01/01/2007 | 00:00:28 | Voltage #0x0d | Lower Non-critical going low 
   5 | 01/01/2007 | 00:00:28 | Voltage #0x0d | Lower Critical going low 
   6 | 01/01/2007 | 00:00:29 | Voltage #0x0d | Lower Non-recoverable going low 
   7 | 01/21/2010 | 18:24:02 | Voltage #0x0d | Lower Non-critical going low 
   8 | 01/21/2010 | 18:24:03 | Voltage #0x0d | Lower Critical going low 
   9 | 01/21/2010 | 18:24:03 | Voltage #0x0d | Lower Non-recoverable going low 
   a | 02/01/2010 | 15:06:33 | Power Supply #0x16 | Failure detected | Asserted
   b | 02/01/2010 | 15:06:36 | Power Supply #0x16 | Failure detected | Deasserted
   c | 02/01/2010 | 15:06:42 | Power Supply #0x16 | Failure detected | Asserted
   d | 02/01/2010 | 15:06:57 | Power Supply #0x16 | Failure detected | Deasserted
[root@supermicro-X8DT3-LN4F ~]# 

More ipmitool sel options

ipmitool sel help shows more options:

[root@intel-SR2500 ~]# ipmitool sel help
SEL Commands:  info clear delete list elist get add time save readraw writeraw interpret

ipmitool sel info outputs status information on SEL:

[root@intel-SR2500 ~]# ipmitool sel info
SEL Information
Version          : 1.5 (v1.5, v2 compliant)
Entries          : 642
Free Space       : 52692 bytes 
Percent Used     : 16%
Last Add Time    : 11/09/2009 19:25:11
Last Del Time    : 04/30/2007 08:43:01
Overflow         : false
Supported Cmds   : 'Delete' 'Partial Add' 'Reserve' 'Get Alloc Info' 
# of Alloc Units : 3276
Alloc Unit Size  : 20
# Free Units     : 2634
Largest Free Blk : 2634
Max Record Size  : 10
[root@intel-SR2500 ~]# 

Author: Werner Fischer Werner Fischer, working in the Knowledge Transfer team at Thomas-Krenn, completed his studies of Computer and Media Security at FH Hagenberg in Austria. He is a regular speaker at many conferences like LinuxTag, OSMC, OSDC, LinuxCon, and author for various IT magazines. In his spare time he enjoys playing the piano and training for a good result at the annual Linz marathon relay.

Translator: Alina Ranzinger Alina has been working at Thomas-Krenn.AG since 2024. After her training as multilingual business assistant, she got her job as assistant of the Product Management and is responsible for the translation of texts and for the organisation of the department.