Can I access BMC through NIC 2 in a S5520UR?

[idata]

Hi. I'm trying to access the BMC through NIC 2 on a S5520UR.

I tried syscfg and ipmitool for setting up the BMC LAN configuratioin, but both says that BMC channel 2 is not a LAN channel. Only channels 1 and 3 are available. Channel 1 is associated with NIC1 and Channel 3 is for RMMI AFAIK.

The specifications says:

"The Integrated BMC hardware includes two dedicated 10/100 network interfaces.

These interfaces are not shared with the host system.

At any time, only one dedicated interface may be enabled for management traffic.

The default active interface is the NIC 1 port"

what suggests me that the NIC 2 can be used.

However on the MAC address definition it says:

"Each Intel® Server Board S5520UR has the following four MAC addresses assigned to it at the Intel factory.

NIC 1 MAC address

NIC 2 MAC address – Assigned the NIC 1 MAC address +1

Integrated BMC LAN Channel MAC address – Assigned the NIC 1 MAC address +2

Intel® Remote Management Module 3 (Intel® RMM3) MAC address – Assigned the NIC 1 MAC address +3"

That just talks about one LAN channel.

Intel Deployment Assistant Release Notes says:

"Boot Side Features Details:

...

Configure System Management (Baseboard Management Controller Communication/Users)

- Enable access to the BMC through NIC 1 and/or NIC 2 and/or Serial Port"

But booting it just let me configure LAN channel 1 associated to onboard NIC 1. So I'm a bit confused.

The question is if it is possible to set NIC 2 as a port to access the BMC and how can that be done?

Thanks.

Santiago.

[KAMALANATH_N_Intel]

Hey thats a interesting question.

My guess is yes..

anyways give me a day to test it out in lab and let you know by tomorrw.

Thanks,

kamal.

[KAMALANATH_N_Intel]

Yes. You can access BMC by connecting to NIC2.

But, you need to issue "Write LAN channel port" OEM command to switch to NIC2 to access BMC.

[idata]

Thank you very much for your answers kamal, but have you tried that command on your servers?

I never heard about it and never issued OEM commands so I'm a bit concerned about executing unsupported instructions that can leave these expensive servers unusable in some way.

What tool should I use to issue it?

Thanks,

Santiago

[OSEN]

Can you give the detail on how to issue that command using ipmitool?

[KAMALANATH_N_Intel]

To change the BMC LAN to NIC 2:

To set the Port :

Cmdtool 20 c0 18 2

To get the Port :

Cmdtool 20 c0 19

To set the IP source :

Cmdtool 20 30 1 4

Example :Cmdtool 20 30 1 1 4 2 //2 for DHCP ,1 for static

To set the IP address:

Cmdtool 20 30 1 3

Cmdtool 20 30 1 1 3 a 0xdf 0x81 0x22

To set the Subnet Mask

Cmdtool 20 30 1 1 6 ff ff ff 0

To set the GW

Cmdtool 20 30 1 1 c 0xa 0xdf 0x81 12

[Patrick_K_Intel1]

Kamalanathan - end customers don't have cmdtool :-) Or at least they didn't back in my day in EPSD.

[KAMALANATH_N_Intel]

oops.. apologies.. I didnt realise that...

anyways, we can use IPMITOOL or IPMIUtil

# IPMIUtil cmd 00 20 c0 18 2 ( # to change the port)

Let me know if your issue is solved!

[ANieś]

hi,

How this command looks for ipmitool? ( IPMIUtil cmd 00 20 c0 18 2)

[DSilv11]

2 bit shift between IPMItool and CMDTOOL in the netfunc

To set the Port :

Cmdtool 20 c0 18 2

BMC NF CMD DATA

C0 = 1100 0000

shift right 2 bits

0011 0000 = 30

ipmitool raw 0x30 0x18 0x02

BMC NF CMD data

assumed

[Edward_Z_Intel]

Just curious, why would you need to do that? Isn't it easier to use NIC2 in OS and use NIC1 as dedicated management port? (if you need a dedicated management port)

[idata]

Yes Edward, that's easier, but I have the requirement of leaving eth0 as the interface for cluster messaging. There are some installation instructions that requires that, so the cluster is compliant with some specifications.

For the moment I'm using NIC1 for both things at the cost of having a more complex switches configuration.

[Edward_Z_Intel]

I see... So you're running Linux right? What if you assign NIC2 as eth0 in OS? I believe you can do it by editing the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file and add a line like this:

HWADDR=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

Replace xx with MAC address of NIC2. Also edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 with MAC address of NIC2

[ANieś]

Is sharing nic1 interface between the network adapter and the BMC has an impact on performance?

Some of our machines is used as a router and port efficiency is the key for us

[DSilv11]

Under normal usage, the sharing is not measurable.

Now, if you using the remote KVM feature and decide to start streaming video to the OS via the BMC remote device option, you might start seeing some bandwidth usage. The theoretical upper limit is 100Mb/s and I have never seen it ever get near that.