HP Management Base Installation and User's Guide (May 2006)

1 Overview of hpmgmtbase
HP Management Base (hpmgmtbase) is a collection of software that includes driver modules, daemons,
shared libraries, lookup files, and utility support for other HP manageability software (such as SNMP Agents
or WBEM providers).
All HP Integrity servers provide their platform manageability information via hardware that realizes the
Intelligent Platform Management Initiative (IPMI) specification. A key component of IPMI is the Baseboard
Management Controller (BMC). Access to the BMC under Linux access is granted by the Open IPMI device
driver.
The Open IPMI device driver started as an independent project and was accepted into the formal Linux
kernel as of 2.4.22 and 2.6. During its development, this driver has not taken full advantage of the capabilities
of HP Integrity platforms. Some problems do exist with older commercial Linux distributions:
• The driver is not included at all.
• The driver is included but does not work across the entire Integrity line.
HP provides hpmgmtbase to ship a driver with appropriate patches that works on all supported commercial
Linux distributions for all Integrity servers. Other utilities and support files comprise the remainder of
hpmgmtbase.
Conceptual Overview
Because there is no assurance of a kernel build environment being present on any given target system, the
Open IPMI driver is shipped as compiled binaries. The source code is also included for GPL compliance.
The hpmgmtbase installation matches the correct binary to the running kernel. If none match, warnings are
printed and the system administrator will have to build binaries per the provided instructions. hpmgmtbase
can be reconfigured to use customer-generated modules.
hpmgmtbase includes the following:
• A set of binary drivers for multiple revisions of multiple distributions
• Source code to those patched drivers for GPL compliance
• Startup scripts (/etc/init.d/hpmgmtbase and helpers) to configure and load the correct driver
and set up device file
• hpbmc, a general-purpose tool to access the information maintained by the BMC. This includes
Chassis identity (model number, serial number, and so on)•
• Sensor Data Record Repository (SDRR, defined in IPMI), the material list of the BMC
• System Event Log (SEL, defined in IPMI), where the BMC stores low-level chassis events (sensor
conditions, firmware events)
• Forward Progress Log (FPL, an HP extension) where the BMC stores informational events (similar
to the POST log in x86 platforms)
• Current sensor readings
• CPU, DIMM, and PCI slot population
• Cell and partition assignments (midrange and high-end systems only)
• MP card information (IP address)
• hpuid (named after a similar utility on Compaq Proliant hardware) — a utility that controls the Locator
LED on a system.
• hpseld — a utility to monitor the SEL for overflow and other critical events.
• Shared libraries and lookup tables to support these tools and other HP products (such as SNMP agents
and WBEM providers)
Conceptual Overview 7