Commit 845e78a1 authored by Corey Minyard's avatar Corey Minyard Committed by Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] ipmi: doc updates

This cleans up the IPMI documentation to fix some problems and make it more
accurate for the current drivers.
Signed-off-by: default avatarCorey Minyard <minyard@acm.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
parent bdd5b29c
......@@ -25,9 +25,10 @@ subject and I can't cover it all here!
Configuration
-------------
The LinuxIPMI driver is modular, which means you have to pick several
The Linux IPMI driver is modular, which means you have to pick several
things to have it work right depending on your hardware. Most of
these are available in the 'Character Devices' menu.
these are available in the 'Character Devices' menu then the IPMI
menu.
No matter what, you must pick 'IPMI top-level message handler' to use
IPMI. What you do beyond that depends on your needs and hardware.
......@@ -35,33 +36,30 @@ IPMI. What you do beyond that depends on your needs and hardware.
The message handler does not provide any user-level interfaces.
Kernel code (like the watchdog) can still use it. If you need access
from userland, you need to select 'Device interface for IPMI' if you
want access through a device driver. Another interface is also
available, you may select 'IPMI sockets' in the 'Networking Support'
main menu. This provides a socket interface to IPMI. You may select
both of these at the same time, they will both work together.
The driver interface depends on your hardware. If you have a board
with a standard interface (These will generally be either "KCS",
"SMIC", or "BT", consult your hardware manual), choose the 'IPMI SI
handler' option. A driver also exists for direct I2C access to the
IPMI management controller. Some boards support this, but it is
unknown if it will work on every board. For this, choose 'IPMI SMBus
handler', but be ready to try to do some figuring to see if it will
work.
There is also a KCS-only driver interface supplied, but it is
depracated in favor of the SI interface.
want access through a device driver.
The driver interface depends on your hardware. If your system
properly provides the SMBIOS info for IPMI, the driver will detect it
and just work. If you have a board with a standard interface (These
will generally be either "KCS", "SMIC", or "BT", consult your hardware
manual), choose the 'IPMI SI handler' option. A driver also exists
for direct I2C access to the IPMI management controller. Some boards
support this, but it is unknown if it will work on every board. For
this, choose 'IPMI SMBus handler', but be ready to try to do some
figuring to see if it will work on your system if the SMBIOS/APCI
information is wrong or not present. It is fairly safe to have both
these enabled and let the drivers auto-detect what is present.
You should generally enable ACPI on your system, as systems with IPMI
should have ACPI tables describing them.
can have ACPI tables describing them.
If you have a standard interface and the board manufacturer has done
their job correctly, the IPMI controller should be automatically
detect (via ACPI or SMBIOS tables) and should just work. Sadly, many
boards do not have this information. The driver attempts standard
defaults, but they may not work. If you fall into this situation, you
need to read the section below named 'The SI Driver' on how to
hand-configure your system.
detected (via ACPI or SMBIOS tables) and should just work. Sadly,
many boards do not have this information. The driver attempts
standard defaults, but they may not work. If you fall into this
situation, you need to read the section below named 'The SI Driver' or
"The SMBus Driver" on how to hand-configure your system.
IPMI defines a standard watchdog timer. You can enable this with the
'IPMI Watchdog Timer' config option. If you compile the driver into
......@@ -73,6 +71,18 @@ closed (by default it is disabled on close). Go into the 'Watchdog
Cards' menu, enable 'Watchdog Timer Support', and enable the option
'Disable watchdog shutdown on close'.
IPMI systems can often be powered off using IPMI commands. Select
'IPMI Poweroff' to do this. The driver will auto-detect if the system
can be powered off by IPMI. It is safe to enable this even if your
system doesn't support this option. This works on ATCA systems, the
Radisys CPI1 card, and any IPMI system that supports standard chassis
management commands.
If you want the driver to put an event into the event log on a panic,
enable the 'Generate a panic event to all BMCs on a panic' option. If
you want the whole panic string put into the event log using OEM
events, enable the 'Generate OEM events containing the panic string'
option.
Basic Design
------------
......@@ -80,7 +90,7 @@ Basic Design
The Linux IPMI driver is designed to be very modular and flexible, you
only need to take the pieces you need and you can use it in many
different ways. Because of that, it's broken into many chunks of
code. These chunks are:
code. These chunks (by module name) are:
ipmi_msghandler - This is the central piece of software for the IPMI
system. It handles all messages, message timing, and responses. The
......@@ -93,18 +103,26 @@ ipmi_devintf - This provides a userland IOCTL interface for the IPMI
driver, each open file for this device ties in to the message handler
as an IPMI user.
ipmi_si - A driver for various system interfaces. This supports
KCS, SMIC, and may support BT in the future. Unless you have your own
custom interface, you probably need to use this.
ipmi_si - A driver for various system interfaces. This supports KCS,
SMIC, and BT interfaces. Unless you have an SMBus interface or your
own custom interface, you probably need to use this.
ipmi_smb - A driver for accessing BMCs on the SMBus. It uses the
I2C kernel driver's SMBus interfaces to send and receive IPMI messages
over the SMBus.
af_ipmi - A network socket interface to IPMI. This doesn't take up
a character device in your system.
ipmi_watchdog - IPMI requires systems to have a very capable watchdog
timer. This driver implements the standard Linux watchdog timer
interface on top of the IPMI message handler.
ipmi_poweroff - Some systems support the ability to be turned off via
IPMI commands.
These are all individually selectable via configuration options.
Note that the KCS-only interface ahs been removed.
Note that the KCS-only interface has been removed. The af_ipmi driver
is no longer supported and has been removed because it was impossible
to do 32 bit emulation on 64-bit kernels with it.
Much documentation for the interface is in the include files. The
IPMI include files are:
......@@ -424,7 +442,7 @@ at module load time (for a module) with:
modprobe ipmi_smb.o
addr=<adapter1>,<i2caddr1>[,<adapter2>,<i2caddr2>[,...]]
dbg=<flags1>,<flags2>...
[defaultprobe=0] [dbg_probe=1]
[defaultprobe=1] [dbg_probe=1]
The addresses are specified in pairs, the first is the adapter ID and the
second is the I2C address on that adapter.
......@@ -532,3 +550,47 @@ Once you open the watchdog timer, you must write a 'V' character to the
device to close it, or the timer will not stop. This is a new semantic
for the driver, but makes it consistent with the rest of the watchdog
drivers in Linux.
Panic Timeouts
--------------
The OpenIPMI driver supports the ability to put semi-custom and custom
events in the system event log if a panic occurs. if you enable the
'Generate a panic event to all BMCs on a panic' option, you will get
one event on a panic in a standard IPMI event format. If you enable
the 'Generate OEM events containing the panic string' option, you will
also get a bunch of OEM events holding the panic string.
The field settings of the events are:
* Generator ID: 0x21 (kernel)
* EvM Rev: 0x03 (this event is formatting in IPMI 1.0 format)
* Sensor Type: 0x20 (OS critical stop sensor)
* Sensor #: The first byte of the panic string (0 if no panic string)
* Event Dir | Event Type: 0x6f (Assertion, sensor-specific event info)
* Event Data 1: 0xa1 (Runtime stop in OEM bytes 2 and 3)
* Event data 2: second byte of panic string
* Event data 3: third byte of panic string
See the IPMI spec for the details of the event layout. This event is
always sent to the local management controller. It will handle routing
the message to the right place
Other OEM events have the following format:
Record ID (bytes 0-1): Set by the SEL.
Record type (byte 2): 0xf0 (OEM non-timestamped)
byte 3: The slave address of the card saving the panic
byte 4: A sequence number (starting at zero)
The rest of the bytes (11 bytes) are the panic string. If the panic string
is longer than 11 bytes, multiple messages will be sent with increasing
sequence numbers.
Because you cannot send OEM events using the standard interface, this
function will attempt to find an SEL and add the events there. It
will first query the capabilities of the local management controller.
If it has an SEL, then they will be stored in the SEL of the local
management controller. If not, and the local management controller is
an event generator, the event receiver from the local management
controller will be queried and the events sent to the SEL on that
device. Otherwise, the events go nowhere since there is nowhere to
send them.
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