4.117. OpenIPMI

In cases of congested network or slow-responding BMC (Baseboard Management Controller), the reply operation timeout triggered the protocol command retry action. Consequently, the ipmitool utility could incorrectly process a LAN session protocol command with the reply from a previous protocol command. This update fixes handling of expected replies for each command alone and cleans up expected replies between commands. Now, the retried reply of the first command is correctly ignored while the later command, which is currently pending, is properly processed in the described scenario.

It was discovered that the IPMI event daemon (ipmievd) created its process ID (PID) file with world-writable permissions. A local user could use this flaw to make the ipmievd init script kill an arbitrary process when the ipmievd daemon is stopped or restarted.

Prior to this update, the ipmitool utility first checked the IPMI hardware for Dell IPMI extensions and listed only supported commands when printing command usage like the option "ipmtool delloem help". On a non-Dell platform, the usage text was incomplete and misleading. This update lists all Dell OEM extensions in usage texts on all platforms, which allows users to check for command line arguments on non-Dell hardware.

Prior to this update, the ipmitool utility tried to retrieve the Sensor Data Records (SDR) from the IPMI bus instead of the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) bus when IPMI-enabled devices reported SDR under a different owner than the BMC. As a consequence, the timeout setting for the SDR read attempt could significantly decrease the performance and no sensor data was shown. This update modifies ipmitool to read these SDR records from the BMC and shows the correct sensor data on these platforms.

Prior to this update, the exit code of the "ipmitool -o list" option was not set correctly. As a consequence, "ipmitool -o list" always returned the value 1 instead of the expected value 0. This update modifies the underlying code to return the value 0 as expected.

Prior to this update, the "ipmi" service init script did not specify the full path to the "/sbin/lsmod" and "/sbin/modprobe" system utilities. As a consequence, the init script failed when it was executed if PATH did not point to /sbin, for example, when running "sudo /etc/init.d/ipmi". This update modifies the init script so that it now contains the full path to lsmod and modrpobe. Now, it can be executed with sudo.

Prior to this update, the ipmitool man page did not list the "-b", "-B", "-l" and "-T" options. In this update, these options are documented in the ipmitool man page.

Updates to the Dell-specific IPMI extension: A new vFlash command, which allows users to display information about extended SD cards; a new setled command, which allows users to display the backplane LED status; improved error descriptions; added support for new hardware; and updated documentation of the ipmitool delloem commands in the ipmitool manual page.