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SledDog
Contributor
Contributor

Strange Error Message: IPMI_SI during boot up

During the boot up of esx 3.5, I get OK for each system that loads except one: ipmi_si.

I get the following message: unable to find any system interface(s).

I am running on a brand new Dell PowerEdge SC1430 with 8Gigs of RAM and RAID-ed 160Gig drives.

Could some one let me know if this is significant and what does it mean?

Thanks.

Wjo

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ctfoster
Expert
Expert

The IPMI specification defines a set of open interfaces to hardware which can be used to monitor system health using tools such as OpenManage. Most major vendors support IPMI including Dell and VMWare. A driver is built into ESX which I suspect the fault refers too. I'd guess it's unlikely to stop any central function working. All I know I'm afraid.

opbz
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

by the way as far as I know there is no OMSA et for ESX 3.5

so if you have it installed on your server it might be giving you the errors

bggb29
Expert
Expert

I get the same errors on 3.5 upgraded HP DL585's that haver version 7.8 og the hp agents installed

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Justin_King
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I get the same errors on all of my ESX hosts even without the og HP agent installed. HPbl25, BL45, and DL380 all do the same thing. This driver is direclty related to the 3.5 update. From what I can tell it's harmless, though a bit frustrating (I get irked when i see "FAILED"...)

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azn2kew
Champion
Champion

Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) is an industry standard that defines interfaces to the platform management subsystem. All ninth-generation Dell PowerEdge servers incorporate, in their base configuration, support for systems management capabilities defined by IPMI 2.0. Such functionalities include remotely accessing the platform through standard messaging channels such as IPMI Over Serial, LAN, or Serial Over LAN (SOL) connections, as well as generating and sending a Platform Event Trap (PET) when a monitored event condition occurs. Did you try to use latest ESX 3.5 Update 1 & Dell OpenManager to see if it make any difference? If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!! Regards, Stefan Nguyen iGeek Systems Inc. VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!! Regards, Stefan Nguyen VMware vExpert 2009 iGeek Systems Inc. VMware vExpert, VCP 3 & 4, VSP, VTSP, CCA, CCEA, CCNA, MCSA, EMCSE, EMCISA
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Schorschi
Expert
Expert

Use HP 8.0 agents with 3.5 or later. The HP agents work, but do not always identify the "SI" System Interface correctly. Hence the newer agents is preferred.

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ChadMarkley
Contributor
Contributor

I applied all the available patches as of 06/25/2008 and the message still comes up.

From reading the thread I am assuming I need to install the 8.0 mgmt agent(s)

I pulled down the most recent download for ESX 3.x from the HP website. Problem is, when I try to run the .sh script, ./installvm800a.sh, I get the following

bash: ./installvm800a.sh: Permission Denied

I am logged in as root at the console, not via ssh.

The server is a HP Proliand DL380 G3.

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Schorschi
Expert
Expert

A couple of things.

1) The DL380 G3 may not have full IPMI support? I have an old ML350 G3 that I use as a crash and burn box, running ESX 3.5U1 or soon ESX 4.x when available, that does not support modern IPMI so the error is valid, no IPMI SI interface, this is a soft error a boot, but you need to understand that your hardware monitoring may not be complete. You will have to run 7.6 or older agents, if memory serves, at least something that is not IPMI based for older hardware.

2) As for the bash error, make sure all files under hpmgmt directory are owned by root, and that all *.sh files have execute bit set. If someone has changed your umask or default setup for login, they could be changing file permissions when you do not realize it. You have to explictly validate that root is owner and executor of files.

  1. ls -l <path>/*.sh

  2. stat <path>/*.sh

  3. chown <path> root

  4. chmod +x <path>\*.sh

If you untar-ed the 8.0.0a agent tgz as root all permissions should be correct, but I still double check things, at times things need to be tweaked. The install script is brain dead and will not fix anything, you have to validate before you try to execute anything.

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Schorschi
Expert
Expert

Be very very careful with OMSA versions. 3.5U1 must have 5.4, 3.0.2U1 must have at least 5.2 and can run 5.3, but not 5.4, per the Dell documentation, if memory serves. VMware documentation is not accurate on this type of thing, trust hardware vendor not VMware. Also, VMware does not, never has done extensive regression or certification testiing. They load the basic agent and do very little testing. Hardware vendors do more, if not as much as I would like.

Management Agents in General...

It is common for VMware to say, well, we only loaded the basic agent, we did not certify with the recommend hardware vendor IPMI driver, we did not load any other related drivers, we never load the remote control device drivers. This is scary, because remote control devices, HP iLO, Dell RAC, and IBM RSA/aMM, often interact and leverage hardware function monitoring and agents. We have multiple open tickes with vendors on management agents...

HP - 1 - 7.9.0, 7.9.1, 8.0.0, and 8.0.0a - system management home page timeout issue

Dell - 3 - VMNIC monitoring incomplete, SNMP version core to VMware ESX OS has know bugs that OMSA encounters, status of Global Hot Spare not reported correctly (more of a feature request, than bug, Dell acknowledges hot spare handing is not as good as HP method)

IBM - 5 PMRs - CIMOM errors, RSA Daemon errors (with CIMOM), Director Agent 5.20.2 does not reporting events in local logs (/var/log/messages) consistently, Director Server 5.20.2 crashes frequently, ServeRAID agent 8.x/9.x disk management functions, not fully supported on ESX OS. IBM has acknowledged all of these issues as valid, but has been have trouble resolving them, in some cases for more than 90 days. IBM has some major issues with IBM Director 5.20.x not being a complete solution for ESX OS, you have to load 4 or 5 (depending on hardware used) additional drivers/components to get close to what HP and Dell do on ESX OS with initial installation, and both IBM and VMware missed issues, and still do not agree on what should be installed or not installed at times.

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Schorschi
Expert
Expert

Points? Not sure myself, but others I believe answered your question?

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daniel_uk
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Is anyone using IPMI with there ESX hosts? I had some IP KVM's in a previous role which supported and never got round to investigating how it worked.

Thanks

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Vkeeven
Contributor
Contributor

If you receive this message, your hardware does not support IPMI or the corresponding add on hardware is not supported. For Dell servers this is in the DRAC component, for HP servers its in the ILO.

To check if IPMI is available on the ESX host, type the following command in the ESX Server console and press Enter:

  1. dmidecode | grep IPMI

If this returns a value, IPMI is available for you hardware. If it does not return a value it is not available and contact your hardware vendor.

To avoid the message during bootup, the following command needs to be executed in the ESX Server console:

  1. chkconfig --level 0123456 ipmi off

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jftwp
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Glad I found this thread... thought it was just 'me'. I'm interested in this new feature, but my aging DL380 G4's (latest BIOS flashed) apparently don't support IPMI because I get this error on startup, and I only have very limited information in the 'Health Status' section of VC. It identifies the system model, bios, see both processors, and 'memory' but very little detail otherwise. At least it shows the status as 'Normal'.

I ran that command (dmidecode | grep IPMI) that vkeeven noted, and got no response, so I guess I either have to call HP and ask them if there are any options at all, or just give up on this feature on my older DL380 G4's. I have some DL360 G5's so hopefully this will all play nicely together once I test ESX 3.5 U3 on those as well. We'll see.

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Colin_Yemm
Contributor
Contributor

Very dumb question on a very old problem, but this might spare somebody else some pain - are you trying to run the .sh file from a VMFS volume? That's a no-go.

Yah, sorry, it's obvious, but I spent a couple weeks trying to figure out why my buddy couldn't follow some advice I gave him when it worked fine for me . . . one webex later, ta-daaaaa!

C

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djswarm
Contributor
Contributor

Not all systems have IPMI support, particularly older SC boxes, however the SC1435 does support IPMI via its Baseboard Management Controller or BMC.

Make sure your BIOS and BMC firmware are current and you are running the VMware approved versions of the drivers. Because of VMware's modifications to the base OS I don't recommend deviating from their recommended driver sets or you can have unexpected results.

Here is a nice page on some Dell BMC/Linux basics:

If it is still not cooperating you might mine your logs for what its being grumpy about.

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