Use freeipmi instead of ipmitool in ipmi plugin

[rezib]

This needs some tests of freeipmi utilities beforehand and check it can integrate seemlessly.

[rezib]

Install freeipmi with:

# apt-get install freeipmi

Then add user/password into /etc/freeipmi/freeipmi.conf.

Then, all freeipmi commands can use these settings transparently:

# ipmipower --host immadcn[01-12] --stat
immadcn06: on
immadcn03: on
immadcn11: on
immadcn07: on
immadcn08: on
immadcn02: on
immadcn10: on
immadcn01: on
immadcn12: on
immadcn05: on
immadcn04: on
immadcn09: on

Or even better:

# ipmipower --host immadcn[01-12] --stat -C
----------------
immadcn[01-12]
----------------
 on

Here is the mapping between clara params and freeipmi commands:

• connect: ipmi-console or conman
• deconnect: ipmi-console --deactivate
• getmac: ipmi-fru or bmc-info (and parse output)
• on: ipmipower --on
• off: ipmipower --off
• status: ipmipower --stat
• reboot: ipmipower --reset
• setpwd: bmc-config -e "KEY=VALUE"
• pxe/disk: ipmi-chassis-config -e "KEY=VALUE"
• bios: ipmi-chassis-config -e "KEY=VALUE"
• immdhcp: bmc-config -e "KEY=VALUE"
• blink: ipmi-chassis --chassis-identify=FORCE
• reset: bmc-device --cold-reset
• sellist: ipmi-sel
• selclear: ipmi-sel --clear

We can also remove all parallel/nodeset logic in IPMI plugin since everything is managed natively by freeipmi.

[hmlth]

• freeipmi options are a lot more complicated and less obvious
• freeipmi do not work with the name of the node

[rezib]

I've thought a bit more about this. I think we should:

• Remove the ipmi plugin from clara, as it is something weird inside clara which only manage software related stuff otherwise.
• Write a tiny python wrapper over freeipmi (notably to manage the hostname prefix) that also offer a python library.
• Use that library in things like monitoring plugins, clearsel script (and friends), in slurm-pwmgt-nodes, and so on.

This way, we get:

• all advantages of the clara ipmi plugin in terms of user experience,
• possibility to install this tiny wrapper on nodes where clara is not desired,
• we can factorize code in many other components.

What do you think?

[mehdid]

I am not sure I understand correctly "Remove the ipmi plugin from clara"... especially, when one of the outcomes is "all advantages of the clara ipmi plugin in terms of user experience".
So what is this about?

[rezib]

How do you get the other outcomes without going through all the 3 steps of the action plan?

[mehdid]

It is not easy to offer the same user experience by removing the plugin and replacing it with something that behaves differently. :-)

[rezib]

It can obviously behave exactly the same, just replacing clara ipmi by $newstuff in the command line.