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ASF? AMT? Which can I use and how do I manage?

Brad_Waite
Beginner
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Pardon my ignorance and/or if this is posted in the completely wrong forum, and feel free to point me in the right direction.

I have an Intel D975-XBX2 motherboard that would seem to support ASF/AMT. The latest BIOS has an ASF enable option, and a previous BIOS mentions AMT in the description. The tech product spec says AMT is a manufacturing option, but I can't find a part number list to cross reference.

My primary goal for this system is remote power cycle or reset. Console redirection or event logging would be cool, but not necessary.

Can I do this with ASF? If so, what software do I use? I've used Intel's ISM / DPC for my IPMI-enabled server boards, but can't find anything about ASF management utilities.

Second, in general, can boards that support ASF be upgraded to AMT or is it completely different technology? Most of the stuff I've found seems to indicate they're similar and I've come across mentions on this forum of an "activate" tool that can "upgrade" a board to AMT.

Thanks for the help!
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6 Replies
Judy_H_Intel
Employee
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Hi Brad,
Thanks for your post. I am going to direct you to a series of 5 articles about ASF and AMT : http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2007/09/04/asf-and-intel-amt-spot-the-differences-part-1/

These were written by someone who has worked on both ASF and AMT. His articles should certainly help you to understand the differences between the two.

Cheers,
Judy
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Brad_Waite
Beginner
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Hi Judy,

Thanks for the reply and the link.

As it turns out, those articles were the first ones I read when initially researching ASF and led me to believe that I could "upgrade" to AMT on my BadAxe2.

And while Gershon's articles are good at pointing out the differences and advantages of AMT over ASF, it doesn't really address my initial questions, namely, what do I use to manage a box via ASF?

Thanks again.

Brad
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Ylian_S_Intel
Employee
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Ha the BadAxe2! I used that board as my main development machine for a year or two. Sadly, if I recall correctly it is one of the few machines that had Intel AMT 1.0, the original version of AMT that is not really supported by many tools. If you want to try Manageabiltiy Commander on it (if you opt to use AMT of course) it may just work, I kept testing against AMT 1.0 for a long time.

Probalby the easiest thing to do is activate Intel AMT on your board from the BIOS and from a different computer, use a web browser and hit HTTP port 16992. You get a basic web page, with the event log and a few commands.

I can't help you with ASF sadly... I don't know anything about it.

Ylian
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Judy_H_Intel
Employee
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Hi Brad,
Sorry for directing you to articles you have already read. But since you have read them, you should see that ASF standard is an open standard not managed by Intel. I would suggest that you read the ASF standard and do a search for more information.When I did so, Ifound an article written by Intel in 2002 about ASF: http://download.intel.com/design/network/papers/ASF_whitepaper.pdf and another paper http://www.broadcom.com/collateral/wp/ASF-WP102-R.pdfthat may help you.

Cheers,
Judy
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Brad_Waite
Beginner
2,931 Views
Ha the BadAxe2! I used that board as my main development machine for a year or two. Sadly, if I recall correctly it is one of the few machines that had Intel AMT 1.0, the original version of AMT that is not really supported by many tools. If you want to try Manageabiltiy Commander on it (if you opt to use AMT of course) it may just work, I kept testing against AMT 1.0 for a long time.

There's no option for AMT in the current BIOS, so I'm inclined to believe my board variation doesn't support it. I suppose it's worth downgrading to the BIOS that indicates AMT support - it may be a BIOS limitation, not hardware.

Thanks for the heads-up on Commander - if I get AMT going I'll use that.

Probalby the easiest thing to do is activate Intel AMT on your board from the BIOS and from a different computer, use a web browser and hit HTTP port 16992. You get a basic web page, with the event log and a few commands.

Question: how / where is the IP configured for AMT? In the BIOS? For my IPMI boards, I'd use the Intel SSU utility to set the IP and parameters, but I haven't seen much that specifies how to do that in AMT.
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Ylian_Saint-Hilaire
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The Intel AMT configuration is not always in the BIOS, often times you have to do CTRL-P during the boot process to get to the Intel AMT config. I am pretty sure it's the case with the BadAxe2. If not set, the defaut password is "admin" and you have to change it first. I will check later today to see if my BadAxe2 is still running in my lab. Even is you want to use ASF, you will need to get to the "CTRL-P" menu and activate it, it's not enabled by default.

Ylian
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