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Supermicro X11 LGA1151 Series theory of operation

Remote power control using ipmitool

To remote control supermicro you can use ipmitool.

ipmitool -H [bmc_ip] -U [bmc_username] -P [bmc_password] chassis power off
ipmitool -H [bmc_ip] -U [bmc_username] -P [bmc_password] chassis power on
ipmitool -H [bmc_ip] -U [bmc_username] -P [bmc_password] chassis power cycle
ipmitool -H [bmc_ip] -U [bmc_username] -P [bmc_password] chassis power reset

Enabling SOL

This procedure is based on this documentation.

Follow the steps below to set up a serial connection via ssh:

  1. Enable SOL/COM2 console in BIOS. To do that in BIOS go to the Advanced section, then select Serial Port Console Redirection and set the SOL/COM2 Console Redirection option to Enabled state.

  2. Edit the /etc/default/grub on your Linux-based OS file by adding:

    linux /vmlinuz ro console=ttyS1,115200n8 earlyprintk=serial,ttyS1,115200n8

    NOTE: If your Linux-based OS is QubesOS you should additionally remove the plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles phase to enable password disk authentication via SOL

  3. Add the following lines to the ~/.ssh/config file on your machine:

    Host <IP>
    HostKeyAlgorithms = +ssh-rsa
    PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms = +ssh-rsa

  4. Connect with BMC via ssh:

    ssh ADMIN@<IP>

  5. Then run the following command:

    cd system1/sol1

  6. And start the serial console:

    start

If you want to run the SOL console again, repeat points 4-6.

Using Supermicro Update Manager (SUM)

Supermicro Update Manager is a proprietary tool for interacting with Supermicro BMC. It can be used to change BIOS settings or mount virtual drive through CLI, among other things.

Examples below assume that SUM was downloaded and extracted, and commands are executed from directory with sum executable.

Mounting floppy image

./sum -i [bmc_ip] -u [bmc_username] -p [bmc_password] -c MountFloppyImage --file path/to/file.img

Mounting ISO image

Contrary to mounting floppy, for ISO you have to pass URL instead of path to local file. SUM supports SAMBA, HTTP and, in latest versions, HTTPS.

./sum -i [bmc_ip] -u [bmc_username] -p [bmc_password] -c MountIsoImage --image_url http://www.example.com/cd.iso

Reading default and current BIOS configuration

To read out default settings:

./sum -i [bmc_ip] -u [bmc_username] -p [bmc_password] -c GetDefaultBiosCfg --file bios.cfg

To get current settings instead, change GetDefaultBiosCfg to GetCurrentBiosCfg. In both cases, you can omit --file bios.cfg to print the settings to standard output.

Writing settings to BIOS

./sum -i [bmc_ip] -u [bmc_username] -p [bmc_password] -c ChangeBiosCfg --file bios.cfg

There are additional switches to this command like --reboot and --post_complete, but they require cooperation from the running OS. These commands result in OS displaying power off (or log out) window, as if power button was pressed. After 5 minutes or so a hard reboot is initiated. This gives user a chance to save current work, but for test automation this may be unnecessary delay.

File passed to this command can be a full configuration saved by one of the previous commands, or it can be simplified to contain just the settings that are to be changed, together with their section headers. Any option not listed in simplified file will not be changed.

For example, to enable TXT you can use file with following content:

[Advanced|Trusted Computing]
TXT Support=01