Synse IPMI Plugin

A general-purpose IPMI plugin for Synse Server.

Getting Started

Getting

You can get the IPMI plugin as a pre-built binary from a release, or as a Docker image.

docker pull vaporio/ipmi-plugin

If you wish to use a development build, fork/clone the repo and build the plugin from source.

Running

The IPMI plugin requires the IPMI-enabled servers it will communicate with to be configured. As such, running the plugin without additional configuration will cause it to fail. As an example of how to configure and get started with running the IPMI plugin, a simple example deployment exists within the example directory. It runs Synse Server, the IPMI plugin, and a basic IPMI simulator.

To run it,

cd example
docker-compose up -d

You can then use Synse's HTTP API or the Synse CLI to query Synse for plugin data. Additionally, if you have ipmitool, you can use that to interface with the IPMI Simulator used in the deployment.

$ ipmitool -H 127.0.0.1 -p 623 -U ADMIN -P ADMIN -I lanplus chassis status
System Power         : on
Power Overload       : false
Power Interlock      : inactive
Main Power Fault     : false
Power Control Fault  : false
Power Restore Policy : always-off
Last Power Event     :
Chassis Intrusion    : inactive
Front-Panel Lockout  : inactive
Drive Fault          : false
Cooling/Fan Fault    : false

Plugin Configuration

Plugin and device configuration are described in detail in the SDK Documentation.

When deploying, you will need to provide your own plugin configuration (config.yaml) with dynamic configuration defined. This is how the IPMI plugin knows about which BMCs to communicate with. It will query the configured BMC(s) at runtime to determine their capabilities and any devices they may have.

As an example:

dynamicRegistration:
  config:
  - hostname: 10.1.2.3
    port: 623
    username: ADMIN
    password: ADMIN
    interface: lanplus
  - hostname: 10.1.2.4
    port: 623
    username: ADMIN
    password: ADMIN
    interface: lanplus

Dynamic Registration Options

Below are the fields that are expected in each of the dynamic registration items. If no default is specified (-), the field is required.

Field	Description	Default
path	The path to the ipmitool binary. Since this is run as a container, this generally never needs to be set in configuration, as ipmitool is on the container PATH.	ipmitool
hostname	The address/hostname of the BMC to connect to.	-
port	The port of the BMC to connect to. This is usually 623.	-
username	The user on the BMC to run commands as.	-
password	The password for user authentication on the BMC, if set.	-
interface	The transport interface. Must be one of: lan, lanplus	-

Reading Outputs

Outputs are referenced by name. A single device may have more than one instance of an output type. A value of - in the table below indicates that there is no value set for that field. The built-in section describes outputs this plugin uses which are built-in to the SDK.

Built-in

Name	Description	Unit	Type	Precision
state	Power or LED state. (on/off)	-	state	-
status	Status of the boot target selection.	-	status	-

Device Handlers

Device Handlers are referenced by name.

Name	Description	Outputs	Read	Write	Bulk Read	Listen
boot_target	A handler for chassis boot target.	status	✓	✓	✗	✗
chassis.led	A handler for chassis identify, commonly an LED.	state	✓	✓	✗	✗
chassis.power	A handler for chassis power.	state	✓	✓	✗	✗

Write Values

This plugin supports the following values when writing to a device via a handler.

Handler	Write Action	Write Data	Description
boot_target	target	none, pxe, disk, safe, diag, cdrom, bios, rfloppy, rprimary, rcdrom, rdisk, floppy	The boot target selection for the chassis.
chassis.led	state	on, off	The power state to put the identify LED into.
chassis.power	state	on, off, reset, cycle	The power state to put the chassis into.

Tested BMCs

This plugin has been tested against the vaporio/ipmi-simulator image. It has also been tested against the following hardware:

• HPE Cloudline CL2200 G3 Server

If you have tested this on other hardware and found it to work, let us know! Open a PR and add to the list.

Compatibility

Below is a table describing the compatibility of plugin versions with Synse platform versions.

	Synse v2	Synse v3
plugin v1.x	✓	✗
plugin v2.x	✗	✓

Troubleshooting

Debugging

The plugin can be run in debug mode for additional logging. This is done by:

• Setting the debug option to true in the plugin configuration YAML

  debug: true

• Passing the --debug flag when running the binary/image

  docker run vaporio/ipmi-plugin --debug
  

• Running the image with the PLUGIN_DEBUG environment variable set to true

  docker run -e PLUGIN_DEBUG=true vaporio/ipmi-plugin
  

Developing

A development/debug Dockerfile is provided in the project repository to enable building image which may be useful when developing or debugging a plugin. The development image uses an ubuntu base, bringing with it all the standard command line tools one would expect. To build a development image:

make docker-dev

The built image will be tagged using the format dev-{COMMIT}, where COMMIT is the short commit for the repository at the time. This image is not published as part of the CI pipeline, but those with access to the Docker Hub repo may publish manually.

Contributing / Reporting

If you experience a bug, would like to ask a question, or request a feature, open a new issue and provide as much context as possible. All contributions, questions, and feedback are welcomed and appreciated.

License

The Synse IPMI Plugin is licensed under GPLv3. See LICENSE for more info.