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I have several dozen Supermicro servers which use the Supermicro Embedded BMC. The documentation on that page suggests that I can access the Serial Over LAN (Serial Console) over SSH:

SMASH and CLP support

SSH based SOL
Power control of the server

But when I ssh into my BMC, all I see is a Busybox implementation, with no clear ability to connect to the SOL:

# ssh 192.168.100.100 -l ADMIN
[email protected]'s password:


BusyBox v1.1.3 (2011.02.12-01:48+0000) Built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

# show
-sh: show: not found
# smash
-sh: smash: not found

Supermicro support is giving me inconsistent answers. Is it possible to connect to the SOL via the SSH interface?

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2 Answers 2

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The ability appears to exist in systems running SMASH 1.04, but not in older versions such as SMASH 1.00 or busybox.

My experience is this: I was able to add SOL capability to a X8DTL by upgrading the firmware from version 2.23 to 2.43 with images downloaded from http://www.supermicro.com/support/bios/firmware0.aspx and uploading it to the HTTP interface of the bmc.

Note that the firmware versions vary significantly on different motherboards, but the SMASH versions seem to indicate the actual functionality available. (I have a X9DRL with firmware 1.88 that also has SMASH 1.04 and sol support.)

To access the serial console:

ssh ADMIN@<bmc-ip>
<input password>

cd system1/sol1
start

To exit the console, you need to press Enter, Esc, Shift-T

The console sometimes freezes up during POST or on reboot, so you may need use that key combo to exit the console. But overall the console here is much more reliable than the one accessible via IPMIView or the web interface.

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4

Can you please let me know the exact version of BMC? Also, if you know the server / motherboard model number, that will be helpful. In my experience, its possible to connect to the SOL via the SSH if the particular IPMI card supports the feature. You will need to change BIOS settings to enable SOL interface. If you don't have a manual, you can download it from http://www.sentralsystems.com/support/

Supermicro has already released IPMI configuration utility, which you can download and try from ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/utility/IPMIView/

Once I will further information server/ipmi/motherboard number, I will be able to guide you further.

------------- Update: X8DT3-F motherboard does support SOL over SSH.

Here are the steps. 1.In SSH, issue “/usr/bin/smashclp” and it will launch SMASH 2.Change directory to /admin1/system1/sp1/textredirectsvc1 and give start command to start the SOL session via Smash

Other SOL features you can access from IPMI GUI from any web browser.

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  • dmidecode says that the Motherboard is a Supermicro X8DT3. Can you give me a hint how to find the exact version of the BMC? The documentation I provided above says this is a "Nuvoton WPCM450". Part of the problem is that Supermicro provides many different BMC chips and
    – Stefan Lasiewski
    Nov 7, 2012 at 19:57
  • Hi Stefan, I checked with Supermicro and found that you might have SM X8DT3-F motherboard which has Integrated IPMI. SM do not have any add-on IPMI card for X8DT3 motherboard. You can check if its indeed X8DT3-F motherbaord if it has an IPMI LAN port on top of the USB ports. If thats the case, then you indeed have "Winbond® WPCM450 BMC".
    – John Felton
    Nov 8, 2012 at 10:05
  • Hi John, yes we do have a dedicated IPMI LAN port located above the USB ports. And I am pretty sure that the "Winbond® WPCM450 BMC" is the same thing as the Nuvoton WPCM450 Controller which is mentioned on Supermicro's IPMI page
    – Stefan Lasiewski
    Nov 8, 2012 at 19:04
  • I get this: -> cd /admin1/system1/sp1/textredirectsvc1 /admin1/system1/sp1/textredirectsvc1 : Target not found
    – Stefan Lasiewski
    Nov 8, 2012 at 19:10
  • And this: -> cd /admin1/system1 /admin1/system1 : Target not found
    – Stefan Lasiewski
    Nov 8, 2012 at 19:10

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