From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Aug 29 07:44:40 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A743B106567D for ; Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:44:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@koitsu.dyndns.org) Received: from QMTA06.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net (qmta06.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net [76.96.30.56]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8EC148FC08 for ; Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:44:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@koitsu.dyndns.org) Received: from OMTA10.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.30.28]) by QMTA06.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id 87i01a0010cQ2SLA67kgsB; Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:44:40 +0000 Received: from koitsu.dyndns.org ([67.180.253.227]) by OMTA10.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id 87j41a0014v8bD78W7j46L; Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:43:05 +0000 X-Authority-Analysis: v=1.0 c=1 a=QycZ5dHgAAAA:8 a=rxm5xnb1sKRXDj03AkUA:9 a=xljyP3u6v-uKdXKJIIgA:7 a=P29MuyzDp9Qa6s78hfD-07iGRJUA:4 a=EoioJ0NPDVgA:10 a=LY0hPdMaydYA:10 Received: by icarus.home.lan (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 3A70117B81A; Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:44:37 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:44:37 -0700 From: Jeremy Chadwick To: Zaphod Beeblebrox Message-ID: <20080829074437.GA67295@icarus.home.lan> References: <004701c90998$c9d70240$5d8506c0$@com> <5f67a8c40808282317nd523102qae37ec584f3c0d2@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <5f67a8c40808282317nd523102qae37ec584f3c0d2@mail.gmail.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org, Jonathan Bond-Caron Subject: Re: IPMI and Dell ERA/O X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:44:40 -0000 On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 02:17:17AM -0400, Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote: > Curiously, IPMI shares the ethernet ports with the onboard ethernet > controllers without FreeBSD's knowledge. It does use a different MAC > address. It is also apparently capable of using vlans (haven't tested this > yet). I'm most nervous about how this might behave if the port was being > nailed with traffic --- but I can't easily test this to my satisfaction. > What controls the contention for the port between whatever IPMI magic is > going on and the OS use of the port? My general opinion is to avoid IPMI at all costs. The concept itself is great, and the design idea is okay, but the implementation is an atrocity. If you *must* use IPMI, get an implementation that uses its own, dedicated NIC. That said, the feature you're referring to (IPMI piggybacking on top of an existing NIC on the mainboard) is called "ASF" from a NIC driver perspective. The NIC driver for the OS *must* have full awareness of said piggybacking, and if it doesn't, a couple different things can happen: a) NIC simply does not work b) NIC works, but behaves oddly -- usually this is tracked down to the local network seeing the MAC address continually change for the IP address associated with the machine c) NIC works, but IPMI and other features do not work There are a couple different drivers for FreeBSD which have ASF knowledge; bge(4) does, and I believe em(4) does (I could be wrong here). bge(4) has a loader.conf tunable that tells the driver to understand ASF or not. In general, it's horrible, and I feel sorry for driver authors having to deal with it. -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB |