The Design And Implementation Of The IPMI Driver In Linux System

Currently, most IPMI drivers have their own advantage features, however, most of them could not be run on different platforms as they could not identify the types of IPMI system interfaces supported by the host, and could not be used for multi-user.This paper presents a solution for above issues, and implements a generic IPMI driver which could be used for multi-user.This paper provides a method to read IPMI related information (the system interface types supported by host) from SMBIOS, and initialize the IPMI System Interfaces automatically.This has greatly improved comparing with the traditional way that communicated to BMC by fixed ports, then, the new driver could be run on different platforms.Most of traditional IPMI drivers are designed with a single thread, and could only be accessed by single-user. In this paper, IPMI users,IPMI interfaces and IPMI messages have been all assigned and managed by an identify number. The whole system is based on event-driven; a callback function to receive the reply will be regiested when sending a command to BMC.This paper presentats a schedule strategy of BMC access, and tests show that the strategy works well.In this paper, the modulars of the system are loosely coupled; Modules are connected by abstract interfaces. Application interface module is to provide an easy-to-use interface for application. Message management module deals with the core logic of the driver, and connects different modules in the system.IPMI system interface module is responsible for talking to BMC directly.At last, this paper has demonstratesd the cross-platform and quick reaction in multi-user situation of the implementation by comparing with other IPMI drivers.