HP Management Base Installation and User's Guide (May 2009)

Glossary
BMC Baseboard Management Controller. The IPMI spec describes the BMC as the "heart of IPMI."
It is an embedded microcontroller surrounded by memory, interfaces, and sensors. The entire
collection can provide the various functions described in the specification.
BT Block Transfer. One of the System Interfaces used to connect a BMC to a system CPU. BT is
used in HP Integrity midrange and high-end systems. It transfers data in blocks and is much
faster than KCS or SMIC.
FPL Forward Progress Log. An HP Integrity extension to IPMI, modelled on the SEL. It is a more
verbose log of system activity that covers informational items, as well as everything that goes
into the SEL. It is a circular log and never needs to be cleared.
FRU Field Replaceable Unit. Recognized as an industry-standard acronym, FRU is also tightly defined
under IPMI specifications for data exchange. It describes any item or assembly that can be
replaced outside of the factory. It may or may not require an HP-certified technician to do the
replacement
iLO Integrated Lights Out. The product name for the management processor found on HP ProLiant
servers. Recent firmware upgrades HP Integrity server legacy MP cards to Integrity iLO cards;
it is this firmware that supplies RMCP.
IPMB Intelligent Platform Management Bus. An I2C serial link between two intelligent IPMI controllers
such as a BMC and an MP card. While this specification does exist in some HP Integrity servers,
the implementation is hidden by hpbmc.
IPMI Intelligent Platform Management Initiative. A specification owned by Intel which describes
mechanisms and devices to completely off-load the task of managing system hardware from
the primary CPU. This includes inventory management, entity relationships, sensor values,
scanning and event management, inter-device and inter-chassis communication, and more. See
the following Web site:
http://www.intel.com/design/servers/ipmi/.
KCS Keyboard Controller Style. One of the system interfaces used to connect a BMC to a system
CPU. It is based on the protocol of the legacy Intel 805x keyboard controller chips. It has a
low-pin count, which makes it simple and inexpensive, but its per-byte handshaking scheme
makes it slow. KCS is used with the BMCs on HP Integrity entry-level servers.
MP Management Processor. Generic term for processing, storage, sensor, and offline/remote access
resources. This entity usually exists as separate cards or coprocessors. Early entry-level systems
ship with an optional MP card, and all midrange and high-end systems always have an MP
card. Current firmware upgrades the functionality to HP Integrity iLO cards because they now
are on par with HP ProLiant servers.
Open IPMI Open IPMI refers to an open-source project whose details can be seen at http://
openipmi.sourceforge.net/. It was started independently of the Linux kernel effort to bring
IPMI to Linux. Since 2.4.23 and 2.6, the Open IPMI driver has been fully integrated into the
Linux kernel at the following Web site:
http://kernel.org/
The Open IPMI driver consists of three modules that present a stack. The middle layer,
ipmi_msghandler, keeps track of multiple messages from multiple users and devices. The
upper layer, ipmi_devintf, presents a character device file for user programs to use via
ioctl. The bottom layer, ipmi_si, plugs the message handler into the three system interfaces
(BT, KCS, or SMIC) of the system BMC.
Historically the Open IPMI modules have been slightly out of sync with HP Integrity server
BMC hardware. HP Management Base was initially released to provide compatible drivers,
and now includes other utilities.
Open IPMI is not needed for RMCP operations.
The Open IMPI project also delivers a user library which is not used by any HP products. HP
supplies its own proprietary library as part of HP Management Base.
32 Glossary