1. Serial Consoles in the age of IPMI
Alex Owen
Particle Physics Research Centre
Queen Mary University of London

2. Console Access: VT Who How What Power Clipboard VT220 Printer Switch
March 2014

3. Console Access: Conserver
Who
How
What
Power
Clipboard
VT220
Printer
Switch
Syslog
Conserver
March 2014

4. Console Access: Conserver+iPDU
Who
How
What
Power
Clipboard
VT220
Printer
Switch
Syslog
Conserver
iPDU
March 2014

5. “Perfect” Serial Setup
DEMO
Cyclades console server
ssh
Ctrl-P for power menu
Cyclades iPDU's
Logs on syslog server
March 2014

6. Cyclades Screen Shot
March 2014

7. Serial Console Setup Serial Console IPMI Console - BIOS
Bootloader (Grub)
Kernel
Getty
March 2014

8. Serial Setup Grub Config Grub2 Config Kernel Arguments Getty Config
#/boot/grub/menu.lst
timeout=5
serial --unit=1 –speed=115200
terminal --timeout=5 serial console
Grub2 Config
#/etc/default/grub
GRUB_TERMINAL="console serial"
GRUB_SERIAL_COMMAND="serial --unit=1 -- speed= –word=8 --parity=no --stop=1"
Kernel Arguments
console=tty0
console=ttyS1,115200n8
Getty Config
#/etc/inittab
T1:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS vt102
BIOS
This varies!
March 2014

9. The Age of IPMI Intelligent Platform Management Interface
Baseboard Management Controller (BMC)
Out of band systems management and monitoring
Network capable
Standardised
Insecure – need management LAN
Setup varies (key point enable LAN interface!)
March 2014

10. IPMI Serial Console Setup
IPMI Console -
IPMI
BIOS
Bootloader (Grub)
Kernel
Getty
March 2014

11. The Age of IPMI: Simple Commands!
ipmitool -I lanplus -U $user -P $pass -H $host sol activate
ipmitool -I lanplus -U $user -P $pass -H $host power on
ipmitool -I lanplus -U $user -P $pass -H $host power soft
ipmitool -I lanplus -U $user -P $pass -H $host power off
March 2014

12. Console Access: ipmitool
Who
How
What
Power
Clipboard
VT220
Printer
Switch
Syslog
Conserver
iPDU -
ipmitool
March 2014

13. Buy a Solution Opengear ACM5508-2-I 8 port serial conosle server
Dual power supplies
Management LAN port + DHCP
Integrate with iPDU's or use IPMI
Mentioned IPMI and ipmitool in marketing blurb
Details ipmitool in documentation
March 2014

14. Buy a Solution Opengear ACM5508-2-I Great bit of kit... BUT...
DOES NOT INTEGRATE IPMI Serial Over LAN
March 2014

15. Build a Solution Requirements Permanent ipmi sol connection
Ability to disconnect and reconnect
Permanent ipmi sol connection
Logging of who and what
Power control menu
Toolbox
GNU Screen / Tmux + ipmitool + glue
March 2014

16. Build a Solution
March 2014

17. Install Conlog Docs in init script: Prerequisites User/group Git clone
Copy + symlink
Config file
Init script
Coming Soon for SL/CentOS
##### #Howto setup as system service running as conlog user ## Install pre-reqs # $SUDO apt-get install git tmux ## NB: bash 4 required for "declare -A" ## Create conlog user and group # $SUDO adduser --system --group --disabled-login --home /usr/local/share/conlog --gecos "ConLog User" conlog # $SUDO passwd -l conlog ## become conlog user # sudo -sH -u conlog ## as conlog user # cd # mkdir git # cd git # git clone # exit ## back as root install in /usr/local/bin/ # cd /usr/local/bin/ # $SUDO cp ~conlog/git/conlog/conlogd ./ # $SUDO ln -s conlogd conlog ## create config file: # cp ~conlog/git/conlogexample-conlogd.conf /etc/conlogd.conf ## edit /etc/conlogd.conf to local setup ## Add users to conlog group # $SUDO adduser user1 conlog # $SUDO adduser user1 conlog ## copy this init script to /etc/init.d/conlogd # chmod 755 and ## Link into boot process: # update-rc.d conlogd defaults #####
March 2014

18. Conlog Config File March 2014
####################### ## example config file ## /etc/conlogd.conf for system ## or ~/.conlogd.conf for user ####################### # NB: This is a bash script fragment which is sourced. # Take care when using what bash thinks are special characters! ##Override default variables if needed #ALT_CLIENT_NAME=ipmiconsole #CONLOGDSOCKET=/tmp/conlogd-socket #GROUP=staff ##Default vars restartsol #NORMALRESTARTPAUSE=4 #MINELAPSED=20 #GOODRUNTIME=$(( 12 * 60 * 60 )) # 12 hours # If you don't have DNS for ipmi clients but a formular/mapping from regular DNS # then implememt a getip function for example if the host IP is in DNS # as aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd and the bmc has IP ccc.ddd then: genip(){ #$1=hostname local output1 local output2 if output1="$(getent hosts $1)" >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then output2="${output1%% *}" echo " ${output2#*.*.}" else return 1 fi }
# Now define hosts # IPMI host with generated/mapped IP conlog batman batman)" # IPMI host with dns entry for bmc conlog robin ### NOT YET IMPLEMENTED # Local KVM host #conlog zoro "qemu:///system" # Remote KVM host - conlog user needs ssh keys in place #conlog test # Serial console via a cyclade console server #conlog cyclades
#######################
March 2014

19. Conlog Demo
Lets hope this works!
March 2014

20. Conlog Screenshots
March 2014

21. Console Access: conlog
Who
How
What
Power
Clipboard
VT220
Printer
Switch
Syslog
Conserver
iPDU -
ipmitool
Conlog
March 2014

22. Build conlog appliance
MiraBox or DreamPlug
MiraBox more Capable
Dream Plug has more Debian support (right now)
Chose DreamPlug
March 2014

23. Demo Dreamplug USB Serial console Uboot
Flash Uboot (with debian version)
Netboot debian installer
JTAG (use openocd from debian testing)
March 2014

24. Conclusions Serial Consoles are not dead
They have also evolved into IPMI consoles
“ipmitool” is not “ipmisolution”
Conlog aims towards being “ipmisolution”
Dreamplug is a great platform for building your own conlog (or other) appliance
Thanks for listening and patches welcome!
March 2014

25. Resources https://github.com/raowen/conlog
March 2014

26. Extra Slides
March 2014

27. In The Rack
March 2014

28. Serial/RJ45 Adapters
Opengear
Cyclades
March 2014

29. .Xresources
*XTerm*VT100.translations: #override \n\ Shift<Key>F1: string(0x1b) string("1") \n\ Shift<Key>F2: string(0x1b) string("2") \n\ Shift<Key>F3: string(0x1b) string("3") \n\ Shift<Key>F4: string(0x1b) string("4") \n\ Shift<Key>F5: string(0x1b) string("5") \n\ Shift<Key>F6: string(0x1b) string("6") \n\ Shift<Key>F7: string(0x1b) string("7") \n\ Shift<Key>F8: string(0x1b) string("8") \n\ Shift<Key>F9: string(0x1b) string("9") \n\ Shift<Key>F10: string(0x1b) string("0") \n\ Shift<Key>F11: string(0x1b) string("!") \n\ Shift<Key>F12: string(0x1b) \n\ Ctrl<Key>F1: string(0x1b) string("OP") \n\ Ctrl<Key>F2: string(0x1b) string("OQ") \n\ Ctrl<Key>F3: string(0x1b) string("OR") \n\ Ctrl<Key>F4: string(0x1b) string("OS") \n\ Ctrl<Key>F5: string(0x1b) string("OT") \n\ Ctrl<Key>F6: string(0x1b) string("OU") \n\ Ctrl<Key>F7: string(0x1b) string("OV") \n\ Ctrl<Key>F8: string(0x1b) string("OW") \n\ Ctrl<Key>F9: string(0x1b) string("OX") \n\ Ctrl<Key>F10: string(0x1b) string("OY") \n\ Ctrl<Key>F11: string(0x1b) string("OZ") \n\ Ctrl<Key>F12: string("[BH") \n\
March 2014