Getting LCD message through IPMI form Dell Server (Poweredge R710)

Question

I'm exploring the IPMI interface (using ipmitool on ubuntu 11.10, remotely over LAN) and can perform various operations however, I can't view the status message displayed on the LCD.

ipmitool supports delloem lcd subcommands. These subcommands unfortunately primarily only allow me to set data to the lcd, but I can't read from the lcd.

The message currently displayed on the LCD relates to the loss of power redundancy (Dell orange error). For testing purposes I manually removed the redundant power supply and have been trying to read the message.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

This may not get you the text off the LCD, but have you tried the chassis and power subcommands? It's been a while since I had Dell equipment, but I believe one of these has power supply status information.

Alternatively you can install the OpenManage SNMP agent and query this information (and a lot more) via SNMP without having to parse ipmitool's output yourself.