ipmiconsole(8) System Commands ipmiconsole(8) NAME ipmiconsole - IPMI console utility SYNOPSIS ipmiconsole [OPTION...] DESCRIPTION ipmiconsole is a Serial-over-LAN (SOL) console utility. It can be used to establish console sessions to remote machines using the IPMI 2.0 SOL proto- col. Ipmiconsole communicates with a remote machine's Baseboard Management Con- troller (BMC) to establish a console session. Before any SOL communication can take place, the remote machine's BMC must be configured properly. The FreeIPMI tool ipmi-config(8) may be used to do this configuration. Often (although not always), console redirection must be also be configured properly in the BIOS and/or operating system. Both must be configured to redirect console traffic out the appropriate COM port. Please see your motherboard and OS documentation for instructions on proper setup. Listed below are general IPMI options, tool specific options, trouble shooting information, workaround information, examples, and known issues. For a general introduction to FreeIPMI please see freeipmi(7). GENERAL OPTIONS The following options are general options for configuring IPMI communica- tion and executing general tool commands. -h IPMIHOST, --hostname=IPMIHOST[:PORT] Specify the remote host to communicate with. An optional port can be specified, which may be useful in port forwarding or similar situa- tions. If specifying an IPv6 address and port, use the format [AD- DRESS]:PORT. -u, --username=USERNAME Specify the username to use when authenticating with the remote host. If not specified, a null (i.e. anonymous) username is as- sumed. The user must a high enough privilege to establish a SOL ses- sion and have SOL session abilities. -p PASSWORD, --password=PASSWORD Specify the password to use when authenticationg with the remote host. If not specified, a null password is assumed. Maximum pass- word length is 16 for IPMI 1.5 and 20 for IPMI 2.0. -P, --password-prompt Prompt for password to avoid possibility of listing it in process lists. -k K_G, --k-g=K_G Specify the K_g BMC key to use when authenticating with the remote host for IPMI 2.0. If not specified, a null key is assumed. To input the key in hexadecimal form, prefix the string with '0x'. E.g., the key 'abc' can be entered with the either the string 'abc' or the string '0x616263' -K, --k-g-prompt Prompt for k-g to avoid possibility of listing it in process lists. --session-timeout=MILLISECONDS Specify the session timeout in milliseconds. Defaults to 60000 mil- liseconds (60 seconds) if not specified. --retransmission-timeout=MILLISECONDS Specify the packet retransmission timeout in milliseconds. Defaults to 500 milliseconds (0.5 seconds) if not specified. -I, --cipher-suite-id=CIPHER-SUITE-ID Specify the IPMI 2.0 cipher suite ID to use. The Cipher Suite ID identifies a set of authentication, integrity, and confidentiality algorithms to use for IPMI 2.0 communication. The authentication al- gorithm identifies the algorithm to use for session setup, the in- tegrity algorithm identifies the algorithm to use for session packet signatures, and the confidentiality algorithm identifies the algo- rithm to use for payload encryption. Defaults to cipher suite ID 3 if not specified. The user should be aware that only cipher suite ids 3, 8, and 12 encrypt console payloads. Console information will be sent in the clear if an alternate cipher suite id is selected. The following cipher suite ids are currently supported: 0 - Authentication Algorithm = None; Integrity Algorithm = None; Confidentiality Algorithm = None 1 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-SHA1; Integrity Algorithm = None; Confidentiality Algorithm = None 2 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-SHA1; Integrity Algorithm = HMAC-SHA1-96; Confidentiality Algorithm = None 3 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-SHA1; Integrity Algorithm = HMAC-SHA1-96; Confidentiality Algorithm = AES-CBC-128 6 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-MD5; Integrity Algorithm = None; Confidentiality Algorithm = None 7 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-MD5; Integrity Algorithm = HMAC- MD5-128; Confidentiality Algorithm = None 8 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-MD5; Integrity Algorithm = HMAC- MD5-128; Confidentiality Algorithm = AES-CBC-128 11 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-MD5; Integrity Algorithm = MD5-128; Confidentiality Algorithm = None 12 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-MD5; Integrity Algorithm = MD5-128; Confidentiality Algorithm = AES-CBC-128 15 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-SHA256; Integrity Algorithm = None; Confidentiality Algorithm = None 16 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-SHA256; Integrity Algorithm = HMAC_SHA256_128; Confidentiality Algorithm = None 17 - Authentication Algorithm = HMAC-SHA256; Integrity Algorithm = HMAC_SHA256_128; Confidentiality Algorithm = AES-CBC-128 -l PRIVILEGE-LEVEL, --privilege-level=PRIVILEGE-LEVEL Specify the privilege level to be used. The currently available privilege levels are USER, OPERATOR, and ADMIN. Defaults to ADMIN if not specified. --config-file=FILE Specify an alternate configuration file. -W WORKAROUNDS, --workaround-flags=WORKAROUNDS Specify workarounds to vendor compliance issues. Multiple workarounds can be specified separated by commas. A special command line flag of "none", will indicate no workarounds (may be useful for overriding configured defaults). See WORKAROUNDS below for a list of available workarounds. --debug Turn on debugging. -?, --help Output a help list and exit. --usage Output a usage message and exit. -V, --version Output the program version and exit. IPMICONSOLE OPTIONS The following options are specific to ipmiconsole. -e CHAR, --escape-char=CHAR Specify an alternate escape character (default char '&'). --dont-steal Do not steal an SOL session if one is already detected as being in use. Under most circumstances, if SOL is detected as being in use, ipmiconsole will attempt to steal the SOL session away from the pre- vious session. This default behavior exists for several reasons, most notably that earlier SOL sessions may have not been able to be deactivate properly. --deactivate Deactivate SOL session if one is detected as being in use and exit. --serial-keepalive Occasionally send NUL characters to detect inactive serial connec- tions. This option is particularly useful for those who intend to run ipmiconsole without much interaction, such as for logging pur- poses. While IPMI connections may still be alive, some motherboards have exhibited bugs in which underlying serial data can no longer be sent/received. From the viewpoint of ipmiconsole, data is simply not being sent out of the remote system and this problem is only de- tected once there is user interaction. By sending the occasional NUL character, the underlying loss of serial data transfer can be de- tected far more quickly. There is some risk with this option, as the NUL character byte may affect the remote system depending on what data it may or may not be expecting. For example, a NUL character received by getty(8) and its descendants (such as agetty(8)) will cause a baud rate change, which may lock up the terminal. --serial-keepalive-empty This option is identical to --serial-keepalive except that SOL pack- ets will contain no NUL character data. On some motherboards, this may be sufficient to deal with a hanging IPMI session without the risk of regularly sending a NUL character byte may have. However, some systems may not ACK a SOL packet without character data in it, meaning these keepalive packets do nothing. --sol-payload-instance=NUM Specify the SOL payload instance number. The default value is 1, valid values range from 1 to 15. Most systems only support a single instance, however a few allow users to access multiple. --deactivate-all-instances When used along with the --deactivate option, will deactivate all active SOL instances instead of just the currently configured pay- load instance. --lock-memory Lock sensitive information (such as usernames and passwords) in mem- ory. --proxy Run a TCP proxy redirecting all socket input/output into remote con- sole. Useful for remote kernel debugging with gdb. Please see the SOL-TO-TCP PROXY MODE section below for more information on this mode. --proxyport=PORTNUMBER Configure a custom TCP port number for TCP proxy mode. Default port is 6023. --proxyaddr=ADDRESS Configure a custom listening address for TCP proxy mode. Default address is 127.0.0.1. Please see the SOL-TO-TCP PROXY MODE section below for security caveats overriding this value. ESCAPE CHARACTERS The following escape sequences are supported. The default supported escape character is '&', but can be changed with the -e option. &? Display a list of currently available escape sequences. &. Terminate the connection. &B Send a "serial-break" to the remote console. &D Send a DEL character. && Send a single escape character. GENERAL TROUBLESHOOTING Most often, IPMI problems are due to configuration problems. IPMI over LAN problems involve a misconfiguration of the remote machine's BMC. Double check to make sure the following are configured properly in the remote machine's BMC: IP address, MAC address, subnet mask, username, user enablement, user privilege, password, LAN privilege, LAN enablement, and allowed authentication type(s). For IPMI 2.0 connections, double check to make sure the cipher suite privilege(s) and K_g key are configured prop- erly. The ipmi-config(8) tool can be used to check and/or change these con- figuration settings. In addition to the troubleshooting tips below, please see WORKAROUNDS below to also if there are any vendor specific bugs that have been discovered and worked around. Listed below are many of the common issues for error messages. For addi- tional support, please e-mail the <freeipmi-users@gnu.org> mailing list. "username invalid" - The username entered (or a NULL username if none was entered) is not available on the remote machine. It may also be possible the remote BMC's username configuration is incorrect. "password invalid" - The password entered (or a NULL password if none was entered) is not correct. It may also be possible the password for the user is not correctly configured on the remote BMC. "password verification timeout" - Password verification has timed out. A "password invalid" error (described above) or a generic "session timeout" (described below) occurred. During this point in the protocol it cannot be differentiated which occurred. "k_g invalid" - The K_g key entered (or a NULL K_g key if none was entered) is not correct. It may also be possible the K_g key is not correctly con- figured on the remote BMC. "privilege level insufficient" - An IPMI command requires a higher user privilege than the one authenticated with. Please try to authenticate with a higher privilege. This may require authenticating to a different user which has a higher maximum privilege. "privilege level cannot be obtained for this user" - The privilege level you are attempting to authenticate with is higher than the maximum allowed for this user. Please try again with a lower privilege. It may also be pos- sible the maximum privilege level allowed for a user is not configured properly on the remote BMC. "authentication type unavailable for attempted privilege level" - The au- thentication type you wish to authenticate with is not available for this privilege level. Please try again with an alternate authentication type or alternate privilege level. It may also be possible the available authenti- cation types you can authenticate with are not correctly configured on the remote BMC. "cipher suite id unavailable" - The cipher suite id you wish to authenti- cate with is not available on the remote BMC. Please try again with an al- ternate cipher suite id. It may also be possible the available cipher suite ids are not correctly configured on the remote BMC. "ipmi 2.0 unavailable" - IPMI 2.0 was not discovered on the remote machine. Please try to use IPMI 1.5 instead. "connection timeout" - Initial IPMI communication failed. A number of po- tential errors are possible, including an invalid hostname specified, an IPMI IP address cannot be resolved, IPMI is not enabled on the remote server, the network connection is bad, etc. Please verify configuration and connectivity. "session timeout" - The IPMI session has timed out. Please reconnect. If this error occurs often, you may wish to increase the retransmission time- out. Some remote BMCs are considerably slower than others. "internal IPMI error" - An IPMI error has occurred that FreeIPMI does not know how to handle. Please e-mail <freeipmi-users@gnu.org> to report the issue. IPMICONSOLE TROUBLESHOOTING The following are common issues for error messages in ipmiconsole. "SOL unavailable" - SOL is not configured for use on the remote BMC. It may be not configured in general or for the specific user specified. Au- thenticating with a different user may be sufficient, however the IPMI pro- tocol does not reveal detail on what is not configured on the remote BMC. "SOL in use" - SOL is already in use on the remote BMC. If you do not spec- ify the --dont-steal option, ipmiconsole will attempt to steal the SOL ses- sion away from the other session. Not all BMCs support the ability to steal away a SOL session. "SOL session stolen" - Your SOL session has been stolen by another session. You may wish to try and steal the session back by reconnecting. "SOL requires encryption" - SOL requires a cipher suite id that includes encryption. Please try to use cipher suite id 3, 8, or 12. It may also be possible the encryption requirements are not configured correctly on the remote BMC. "SOL requires no encryption" - SOL requires a cipher suite id that does not use encryption. Please try to use cipher suite id 0, 1, 2, 6, 7, or 11. It may also be possible the encryption requirements are not configured cor- rectly on the remote BMC. "BMC Implementation" - The BMC on the remote machine has a severe problem in its implementation. Please see the WORKAROUNDS section below for possi- ble workarounds. If additional vendor workarounds are required, please con- tact the authors. "excess retransmissions sent" - An excessive number of retransmissions of SOL packets has occurred and ipmiconsole has given up. This may be due to network issues or SOL issues. Some of the same issues involved with "con- nection timeout" or "session timeout" errors may be involved. Please try to reconnect. "excess errors received" - An excessive number of SOL packet errors has oc- curred and ipmiconsole has given up. This may be due to network issues or SOL issues. Please try to reconnect. "BMC Error" - This error usually means a vendor SOL implementation requires a combination of authentication, encryption, privilege, etc. that have not been met by the user's choices. Please try a combination of different ci- pher suites, privileges, etc. to resolve the problem. Please see the WORKAROUNDS section below for possible workarounds too. WORKAROUNDS With so many different vendors implementing their own IPMI solutions, dif- ferent vendors may implement their IPMI protocols incorrectly. The follow- ing describes a number of workarounds currently available to handle discov- ered compliance issues. When possible, workarounds have been implemented so they will be transparent to the user. However, some will require the user to specify a workaround be used via the -W option. The hardware listed below may only indicate the hardware that a problem was discovered on. Newer versions of hardware may fix the problems indicated below. Similar machines from vendors may or may not exhibit the same prob- lems. Different vendors may license their firmware from the same IPMI firmware developer, so it may be worthwhile to try workarounds listed below even if your motherboard is not listed. If you believe your hardware has an additional compliance issue that needs a workaround to be implemented, please contact the FreeIPMI maintainers on <freeipmi-users@gnu.org> or <freeipmi-devel@gnu.org>. authcap - This workaround flag will skip early checks for username capabil- ities, authentication capabilities, and K_g support and allow IPMI authen- tication to succeed. It works around multiple issues in which the remote system does not properly report username capabilities, authentication capa- bilities, or K_g status. Those hitting this issue may see "username in- valid", "authentication type unavailable for attempted privilege level", or "k_g invalid" errors. Issue observed on Asus P5M2/P5MT-R/RS162-E4/RX4, In- tel SR1520ML/X38ML, and Sun Fire 2200/4150/4450 with ELOM. nochecksumcheck - This workaround flag will tell FreeIPMI to not check the checksums returned from IPMI command responses. It works around systems that return invalid checksums due to implementation errors, but the packet is otherwise valid. Users are cautioned on the use of this option, as it removes validation of packet integrity in a number of circumstances. How- ever, it is unlikely to be an issue in most situations. Those hitting this issue may see "connection timeout", "session timeout", or "password verifi- cation timeout" errors. On IPMI 1.5 connections, the "noauthcodecheck" workaround may also needed too. Issue observed on Supermicro X9SCM-iiF, Su- permicro X9DRi-F, and Supermicro X9DRFR. intel20 - This workaround flag will work around several Intel IPMI 2.0 au- thentication issues. The issues covered include padding of usernames, and password truncation if the authentication algorithm is HMAC-MD5-128. Those hitting this issue may see "username invalid", "password invalid", or "k_g invalid" errors. Issue observed on Intel SE7520AF2 with Intel Server Man- agement Module (Professional Edition). supermicro20 - This workaround flag will work around several Supermicro IPMI 2.0 authentication issues on motherboards w/ Peppercon IPMI firmware. The issues covered include handling invalid length authentication codes. Those hitting this issue may see "password invalid" errors. Issue observed on Supermicro H8QME with SIMSO daughter card. Confirmed fixed on newerver firmware. sun20 - This workaround flag will work work around several Sun IPMI 2.0 au- thentication issues. The issues covered include invalid lengthed hash keys, improperly hashed keys, and invalid cipher suite records. Those hitting this issue may see "password invalid" or "bmc error" errors. Issue ob- served on Sun Fire 4100/4200/4500 with ILOM. This workaround automatically includes the "opensesspriv" workaround. opensesspriv - This workaround flag will slightly alter FreeIPMI's IPMI 2.0 connection protocol to workaround an invalid hashing algorithm used by the remote system. The privilege level sent during the Open Session stage of an IPMI 2.0 connection is used for hashing keys instead of the privilege level sent during the RAKP1 connection stage. Those hitting this issue may see "password invalid", "k_g invalid", "bad rmcpplus status code", or "privi- lege level cannot be obtained for this user" errors. Issue observed on Sun Fire 4100/4200/4500 with ILOM, Inventec 5441/Dell Xanadu II, Supermicro X8DTH, Supermicro X8DTG, Intel S5500WBV/Penguin Relion 700, Intel S2600JF/Appro 512X, Quanta QSSC-S4R/Appro GB812X-CN, Dell C5220, and the OpenIPMI software BMC. This workaround is automatically triggered with the "sun20" workaround. integritycheckvalue - This workaround flag will work around an invalid in- tegrity check value during an IPMI 2.0 session establishment when using Ci- pher Suite ID 0. The integrity check value should be 0 length, however the remote motherboard responds with a non-empty field. Those hitting this is- sue may see "k_g invalid" errors. Issue observed on Supermicro X8DTG, Su- permicro X8DTU, and Intel S5500WBV/Penguin Relion 700, and Intel S2600JF/Appro 512X. solpayloadsize - This workaround flag will not check for valid SOL payload sizes and assume a proper set. It works around remote systems that report invalid IPMI 2.0 SOL payload sizes. Those hitting this issue may see "BMC Implementation" errors. Issue observed on Asus P5M2/RS162-E4/RX4, Intel SR1520ML/X38ML, Inventec 5441/Dell Xanadu II, Sun x4100, Supermicro X8DTH, Supermicro X8DTG, Supermicro X8DTU, and Quanta QSSC-S4R//Appro GB812X-CN. solport - This workaround flag will ignore alternate SOL ports specified during the protocol. It works around remote systems that report invalid al- ternate SOL ports. Those hitting this issue may see "connection timeout" errors. Issue observed on Asus P5MT-R and Supermicro X8DTH-iF. solstatus - This workaround flag will not check the current activation sta- tus of SOL during the protocol setup. It works around remote systems that do not properly support this command. Those hitting this issue may see "BMC Error" errors. Issue observed on Supermicro X8SIL-F. solchannelsupport - This workaround flag will not check if SOL is supported on the current channel. It works around remote systems that do not properly support this command. Those hitting this issue may see "BMC Error" errors. Issue observed on Intel Windmill, Quanta Winterfell, and Wiwynn Windmill serialalertsdeferred - This workaround option will set serial alerts to be deferred instead of have them be failures. This works around motherboards that perform IPMI over serial along with IPMI serial over LAN. Those hit- ting this issue may see "excess retransmissions sent" when they attempt to input data via SOL. Issue observed on Intel Windmill, Quanta Winterfell, and Wiwynn Windmill. solpacketseq - This workaround option will increment the SOL payload packet sequence number under dire circumstances. Normally SOL should never do this, however some motherboards have shown to get "stuck" due to an inter- nal bug on the motherboard. This workaround can help in getting the BMC un- stuck. Those hitting this issue may see "excess retransmissions sent" when they attempt to input data via SOL. Issue observed on Intel Windmill, Quanta Winterfell, and Wiwynn Windmill. KNOWN ISSUES On older operating systems, if you input your username, password, and other potentially security relevant information on the command line, this infor- mation may be discovered by other users when using tools like the ps(1) command or looking in the /proc file system. It is generally more secure to input password information with options like the -P or -K options. Config- uring security relevant information in the FreeIPMI configuration file would also be an appropriate way to hide this information. In order to prevent brute force attacks, some BMCs will temporarily "lock up" after a number of remote authentication errors. You may need to wait awhile in order to this temporary "lock up" to pass before you may authen- ticate again. Some motherboards define an OEM SOL inactivity timeout for SOL sessions. If SOL sessions stay inactive for long periods of time, ipmiconsole sessions may be abruptly closed, most likely resulting in session timeout errors. Please see OEM notes for information on modifying this parameter if you wish for sessions to stay active longer. SPECIFIC HARDWARE NOTES Intel SR1520ML/X38ML: After a reboot, the SOL session appears to "discon- nect" from the motherboard but stay alive. Character data input from the ipmiconsole client is accepted by the remote machine, but no character data or console data is ever sent back from the remote machine. The SOL session is subsequently useless. There is currently no workaround in place to han- dle this. The session must be closed and restarted. SOL-TO-TCP PROXY MODE By default ipmiconsole will use current terminal for input/output for a re- mote console. Use --proxy option to turn ipmiconsole into a TCP proxy that accepts a single TCP connection and use it for input/output for a remote console. Enabling this mode allows any user with an access to the TCP socket to con- nect to a remote SOL instance WITHOUT ANY AUTHENTICATION. Do not override proxy binding address unless you take measures to prevent unauthorized access. Do not run proxy mode on an untrusted host. EXAMPLES # ipmiconsole -h ahost -u myusername -p mypassword Establish a console session with a remote host. REPORTING BUGS Report bugs to <freeipmi-users@gnu.org> or <freeipmi-devel@gnu.org>. COPYRIGHT Copyright (C) 2007-2015 Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC. Copyright (C) 2006-2007 The Regents of the University of California. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it un- der the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. SEE ALSO freeipmi.conf(5), freeipmi(7), ipmi-config(8) http://www.gnu.org/software/freeipmi/ ipmiconsole 1.6.18 2026-06-02 ipmiconsole(8)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | GENERAL OPTIONS | IPMICONSOLE OPTIONS | ESCAPE CHARACTERS | GENERAL TROUBLESHOOTING | IPMICONSOLE TROUBLESHOOTING | WORKAROUNDS | KNOWN ISSUES | SPECIFIC HARDWARE NOTES | SOL-TO-TCP PROXY MODE | EXAMPLES | REPORTING BUGS | COPYRIGHT | SEE ALSO
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