Date: Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:37:52 +0100 From: Miroslav Lachman <000.fbsd@quip.cz> To: Jeremy Chadwick <freebsd@jdc.parodius.com> Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: hardware for home use large storage Message-ID: <4B717340.6080901@quip.cz> In-Reply-To: <20100209134456.GA37029@icarus.home.lan> References: <4B6F9A8D.4050907@langille.org> <alpine.OSX.2.00.1002090103520.982@hotlap.local> <4B70FEEC.6070007@modulus.org> <20100209063310.GA23387@icarus.home.lan> <4B715AC6.5090500@denninger.net> <20100209134456.GA37029@icarus.home.lan>
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Jeremy Chadwick wrote: > On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 06:53:26AM -0600, Karl Denninger wrote: [...] > http://unix.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/FreeBSD/current/2008-01/msg01206.html > http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=7750 > http://www.beowulf.org/archive/2007-November/019925.html > http://bivald.com/lessons-learned/2009/06/supermicro_ipmi_problems_web_i.html > http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-August/044248.html > http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-August/044237.html > > (Last thread piece does mention that the user was able to get keyboard > working by disabling umass(4) of all things) > > It gets worse when you use one of the IPMI modules that piggybacks on an > existing Ethernet port -- the NIC driver for the OS, from the ground up, > has to be fully aware of ASF and any quirks/oddities involved. For > example, on bge(4) and bce(4), you'll find this (bge mentioned below): > > hw.bge.allow_asf > Allow the ASF feature for cooperating with IPMI. Can cause sys- > tem lockup problems on a small number of systems. Disabled by > default. > > So unless the administrator intentionally sets the loader tunable prior > to booting the OS installation, they'll find all kinds of MAC problems > as a result of the IPMI piggybacking. "Why isn't this enabled by > default?" I believe because there were reports of failures/problems on > people's systems who *did not* have IPMI cards. Lose-lose situation. > > If you really want me to dig up people at Yahoo who have dealt with IPMI > on thousands of Supermicro servers and the insanity involved (due to > bugs, quirks, or implementation differences between the IPMI firmwares > and which revision/model of module used), I can do so. Most of the > complaints I've heard of stem from serial-over-IPMI. I don't think > it'd be a very positive/"supportive" thread, however. :-) > > One similar product that does seem to work well is iLO, available on > HP/Compaq hardware. I can't agree with the last statement about HP's iLO. I have addon card in ML110 G5 (dedicated NIC), the card is "expensive" and bugs are amazing. The management NIC freezes once a day (or more often) with older firmware and must be restarted from inside the installed system by IPMI command on "localhost". With newer firmware, the interface is periodicaly restarded. The virtual media doesn't work at all. It is my worst experience with remote management cards. I believe that other HP servers with built-in card with different FW is working better, this is just my experience. Next one is eLOM in Sun Fire X2100 (shared NIC using bge + ASF). ASF works without problem, but virtual media works only if you are connecting by IP address, not by domain name (from Windows machines) and there is some issue with timeouts of virtual media / console. I reported this + 8 different bugs of web management interface to Sun more than year ago - none was fixed. Next place is for IBM 3650 + RSA II card (dedicated NIC). Expensive, something works, somthing not. For example the card can't read CPU temperature, so you will not recieve any alert in case of overheating. (it was 2 years ago, maybe newer firmware is fixed) Then I have one Supermicro Twin server 6016TT-TF with built-in IPMI / KVM with dedicated NIC port. I found one bug with fan rpm readings (half the number compared to BIOS numbers) and one problem with FreeBSD 7.x sysinstall (USB keyboard not working, but sysinstall from 8.x works without problem). In installed FreeBSD system keyboard and virtual media is working without problems. On the top is Dell R610 DRAC (dedicated NIC) - I didn't find any bugs and there are a lot more features compared to concurrent products. Miroslav Lachman
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