Users Guide

Introduction 7
Introduction
The Dell™ PowerEdge™ systems’ baseboard management controller (BMC) monitors the system for
critical events by communicating with various sensors on the system board and sends alerts and logs
events when certain parameters exceed their preset thresholds. The BMC supports the
industry-standard Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) specification, enabling you to
configure, monitor, and recover systems remotely. The BMC provides the following features:
• Access through the system’s serial port and integrated NIC
• Fault logging and SNMP alerting
• Access to the system event log (SEL) and sensor status
• Control of system functions including power on and power off
• Support that is independent of the system’s power or operating state
• Text console redirection for system setup, text-based utilities, and operating system consoles
• Access to Linux Enterprise server serial console interfaces by using Serial over LAN (SOL).
Dell provides several distinct utilities and programs for accessing the BMC to perform
management activities. The following BMC interfaces allow you to configure and manage your
system through the BMC:
• The BMC Management Utility allows remote, out-of-band LAN and/or serial port power control,
event log access, and console redirection.
• The Remote Access Configuration Utility enables configuring BMC in a pre-operating
system environment.
• The Dell OpenManage™ Deployment Toolkit Version 2.1 SYSCFG.EXE utility provides a
powerful command line configuration tool.
• Dell OpenManage Server Administrator allows remote, in-band access to event logs, power
control, and sensor status information and provides the ability to configure the BMC.
• Command Line Interface (CLI) tools provide a command line tool for sensor status information,
System Event Log (SEL) access, and power control.
Additionally, the BMC can be accessed by standard, off-the-shelf terminal or terminal emulator
utilities that allow access to sensor status information and power control.