Re: ipmi(4)/isa woes

On Friday, October 21, 2011 5:31:01 pm Arnaud Lacombe wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 4:19 PM, John Baldwin <jhb_at_freebsd.org> wrote:
> > On Tuesday, October 11, 2011 6:53:11 pm Arnaud Lacombe wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 6:34 PM, Arnaud Lacombe <lacombar_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > Hi folks,
> >> >
> >> > I've got a machine where ipmi(4) seem to be unable to fully attach.
> >> > 10-current kernel complains the following way:
> >> >
> >> > ipmi0: <IPMI System Interface> at iomem 0-0x1 on isa0
> >> > ipmi0: KCS mode found at mem 0x0 alignment 0x1 on isa
> >> > ipmi0: couldn't configure I/O resource
> >> > device_attach: ipmi0 attach returned 6
> >
> > Resource 0 is not right and will not work.  In this case your BIOS has a buggy
> > SMBIOS / DMI table entry for IPMI.
> >
> >> Actually, I can bypass this issue by enabling acpi(4):
> >>
> >> ipmi0: <IPMI System Interface> port 0xca2,0xca3 on acpi0
> >> ipmi0: KCS mode found at io 0xca2 on acpi
> >> ipmi1: <IPMI System Interface> on isa0
> >> device_attach: ipmi1 attach returned 16
> >> pmtimer0 on isa0
> >> ipmi1: <IPMI System Interface> on isa0
> >> device_attach: ipmi1 attach returned 16
> >
> > You can ignore the ipmi1 messages.
> >
> >> However, the driver fails right after with:
> >>
> >> ipmi0: Timed out waiting for GET_DEVICE_ID
> >
> > Are you sure you have working IPMI?  The timeouts and the busted DMI table
> > is consistent with a machine where IPMI is available via an optional
> > daughterboard, but the daughterboard isn't installed.
> >
> Well, I'm not sure exactly what's the hardware layout looks like[0],
> but when ipmi0 is "attached" on isa0, I can access the IPMI
> controller, get the various information, set/reset the watchdog.
> ipmitool(1) works like a charm. However, at some point, the KCS is
> unable to reach the IPMI controller. Typical error is:
> 
> ipmi0: KCS: Reply address mismatch
> ipmi0: KCS error: 01
> ipmi0: KCS: Reply address mismatch
> ipmi0: KCS error: 01
> ipmi0: Failed to set watchdog
> 
> over an undetermined period of time. Sometimes it stops before the
> watchdog triggers, sometimes it [falsely] triggers the watchdog.

Ok.  I've seen this sometimes where the BMC appears to lockup.  The driver
follows the protocol defined in the spec for resetting the KCS connection
when it detects an error and will retry 3 times before it fails.  There's
not really much we can do once the hardware locks up however.

-- 
John Baldwin