Looking on IBM’s website for how to perform basic Baseboard Management commands can be difficult at best. They tend to want you to be running Director or some management package to leverage the tool.
What if you just want to do the basics and keep it simple. Here’s the scoop.
- Configure the BMC using the options available during the server boot process
- To manage the thing you’ll need to get the SMbridge tool (good search term, or use “System Management Bridge”). Presently, the the tool is available here.
- Now here’s the tricky part, “How the hell do you take advantage of this newfound functionality?”. IBM won’t tell you. They’ll give you all the details on the RSA adapters…but low level BMC commands are tough to find. Here’s the deal. They are Avocent chips. Avocent calls them “OSA System Management Bridge” devices (another good search term). If you cannot find a current manual for the adapter, I’ve posted one here which includes a “Commands” section. They detail the commands that can be launched using the SMbridge tool provided by IBM.
A few examples of the SMbridge utility in use look like:
To gracefully power cycle a server:
smbridge -ip SERVERIPADDR -u BMCUSERNAME -p BMCPASSWORD power cycle
Get some basic server info
smbridge -ip SERVERIPADDR -u BMCUSERNAME -p BMCPASSWORD sysinfo
Get the serial number info:
smbridge -ip SERVERIPADDR -u BMCUSERNAME -p BMCPASSWORD sysinfo fru
To hard bounce a server:
smbridge -ip SERVERIPADDR -u BMCUSERNAME -p BMCPASSWORD power reset
That’s it now you can use your BMC without having to let another bulky package do the work for you.
