Software tools for IPMI at a glance

For IPMI, there are multiple software tools for different purposes and operating systems. In the following, there is an overview of useful IPMI tools.

Linux

IPMItool

IPMItool is already included in multiple Linux distributions.

You can now communicate with IPMItool in two different ways with IPMI BMC's:

via network by using a so-called LAN channel. In this case, only IPMItool is required.
locally via a system interface to the BMC of the computer on which you are currently using IPMItool. In this case, the IPMI device driver from OpenIPMI is required (see below).

Originally, IPMItool was often bundled with OpenIPMI in packages provided by distributions. However, since these are independent software tools, IPMItool is now usually provided as a standalone package.^[1]

More information on the IPMItool in Thomas-Krenn-Wiki:

OpenIPMI

OpenIPMI consists of two parts:

an IPMI device driver for the Linux kernel
a user-level library that provides a higher abstraction of IPMI

Updates from OpenIPMI in RHEL:

More information on OpenIPMI in Thomas-Krenn-Wiki:

IPMI analysis with openipmish

FreeIPMI

FreeIPMI, just like IPMItool, allows IPMI queries both over the network and locally via a system interface. FreeIPMI, however, requires no IPMI device driver. The required code for the access via system interface is already included in FreeIPMI. It is not possible to run the OpenIPMI device driver and FreeIPMI at the same time.

FreeIPMI is specifically designed to meet the requirements of large computer clusters (HPC). At Thomas-Krenn, we use FreeIPMI at IPMI Sensor Monitoring Plugin (v2 and v3) for Nagios/Icinga.

FreeIPMI is included in RHEL 5 as Technology Preview.^[2]

IPMIutil

IPMIutil is another tool in the IPMI environment. In addition to Linux, it is also available for Windows, Solaris, BSD, and EFI. More details can be found in the comparison table of IPMIutil.

IPMIutil is included in Fedora 14.^[3]

Windows

Microsoft IPMI provider

The Microsoft IPMI provider is not an independent tool. Instead, as a WMI provider, it allows other tools to access IPMI BMC information.

More information at Microsoft:

IPMI Provider (Windows) (http://msdn.microsoft.com)

IPMIutil for Windows

(see #IPMIutil)

iPhone

There are two IPMI apps for the iphone by www.yellowkompressor.com

IPMI touch (subject to a fee), IPMI touch in the AppStore
IPMI light (free of charge), IPMI light in the AppStore

Manufacturer-specific tools

Supermicro tools

See IPMI configuration for Supermicro systems.

References

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.

[1] Bug 466762 - Review Request: ipmitool - Utility for IPMI control (bugzilla.redhat.com)

[2] ttp://www.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5/html/Release_Notes/sect-Release_Notes-Technology_Previews.html

[3] ttp://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/ipmiutil

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