Pure Python IPMI Library

Features

• RMCP interface
  • native
  • legacy using ipmitool as backend
• RMCP+ interface
  • native
  • legacy using ipmitool as backend
• system interface
  • native (KCS, SMIC, BT, SSIF) using the IPMI driver on Linux
  • legacy using ipmitool as backend
• IPMB interface
  • using the Total Phase Aardvark
  • using ipmb-dev driver on Linux

Tested Devices

• Kontron
  • mTCA Carrier Manager
  • CompactPCI boards
  • VPX boards
• Pigeon Point Shelf Manager
• HPE iLO3/iLO4
• N.A.T. NAT-MCH
• DESY MMC STAMP & related AMCs (DAMC-FMC2ZUP, DAMC-FMC1Z7IO)
• Supermicro

Requirements

For IPMB interface a Total Phase Aardvark is needed. Another option is to use ipmb-dev driver on Linux with an I2C bus, driver of which supports slave mode: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/ipmb.html

For the native system interface the Linux IPMI driver is needed (ipmi_devintf and e.g. ipmi_si or ipmi_ssif), which provides /dev/ipmi0: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/ipmi.html

For legacy RMCP, RMCP+ and system interface (KCS) using ipmitool as backend the installation of ipmitool is required. Any ipmitool 1.8.x works; the serial interface (serial-terminal) needs at least version 1.8.13.

The native RMCP+ interface needs the cryptography package for encrypted sessions (AES-CBC-128, cipher suites 3 and 17):

pip install python-ipmi[rmcpplus]

Installation

Using pip

The recommended installation method is using pip:

pip install python-ipmi

Manual installation

Download the source distribution package for the library. Extract the package to a temporary location and install:

python setup.py install

Running from the source tree

To work on the library or to use it directly from a git checkout, create a virtual environment and install the checkout in editable mode. Changes to the source are then active without reinstalling:

git clone https://github.com/kontron/python-ipmi.git
cd python-ipmi
python3 -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e '.[rmcpplus]'

This also installs the ipmitool.py command line tool and generates pyipmi/version.py with the version from git describe. Install the optional packages for the interfaces you need: pyserial for the openipmblink interface and pyaardvark for the Aardvark IPMB interface.

To run the tests:

pip install pytest
pytest

The CI also runs the linter ruff, the type checker mypy and the spell checker codespell. They are configured in ruff.toml and setup.cfg, so they run without arguments. Use the versions pinned in .github/workflows/lint.yml to get the same results as the CI:

pip install ruff==0.16.10 mypy==2.4.0 codespell
ruff check .
mypy
codespell

ruff check --fix . fixes many of the reported issues automatically.

Alternatively, the checkout can be used without installing by adding its top directory to PYTHONPATH. Then pyipmi can be imported from any directory, e.g. by your own scripts or the ones in examples/, and the tool is started with python3 -m pyipmi.ipmitool:

export PYTHONPATH=/path/to/python-ipmi
python3 -m pyipmi.ipmitool -V

The optional packages have to be installed separately then, e.g. pip install cryptography for encrypted RMCP+ sessions. The version is shown as dev as long as pyipmi/version.py has not been generated, e.g. by python3 setup.py --version.

Package version

The version of the package is taken from, in this order:

1. git describe --tags in a git checkout, e.g. 0.5.8.dev77+g7c853b0 for the 77th commit after the tag 0.5.8
2. pyipmi/version.py, which is generated by setup.py and is part of the source distribution on PyPI
3. version_archive.txt, which git archive fills in with the tag. This makes the tarballs of the GitHub releases build with the right version, e.g. for distribution packages.

If none of them is available, the version is 0+unknown. The installed version is available as pyipmi.__version__ and with ipmitool.py -V.

Documentation

You can find the most up to date documentation at: http://python-ipmi.rtfd.org

Example

The examples below talk to the BMC of a server, which has the IPMB address 0x20. Set a routing only for targets behind the BMC, see Bridged targets.

Example with the native RMCP+ interface (IPMI v2.0, like ipmitool -I lanplus):

import pyipmi
import pyipmi.interfaces

# without cipher_suite the cipher suites 17 and 3 are tried
interface = pyipmi.interfaces.create_interface('rmcpplus', cipher_suite=3)

connection = pyipmi.create_connection(interface)

connection.target = pyipmi.Target(0x20)
connection.session.set_session_type_rmcp('10.0.0.1', port=623)
connection.session.set_auth_type_user('admin', 'admin')
connection.session.set_priv_level('ADMINISTRATOR')

connection.open()
connection.get_device_id()
connection.close()

ipmitool command:

ipmitool -I lanplus -C 3 -H 10.0.0.1 -p 623 -U admin -P admin -L ADMINISTRATOR -t 0x20 raw 0x06 0x01

Example using the ipmitool as backend with the lan interface:

import pyipmi
import pyipmi.interfaces

# Supported interface_types for ipmitool are: 'lan' , 'lanplus', and 'serial-terminal'
interface = pyipmi.interfaces.create_interface('ipmitool', interface_type='lan')

connection = pyipmi.create_connection(interface)

connection.target = pyipmi.Target(0x20)

connection.session.set_session_type_rmcp('10.0.0.1', port=623)
connection.session.set_auth_type_user('admin', 'admin')
connection.session.set_priv_level("ADMINISTRATOR")
connection.session.establish()

connection.get_device_id()

ipmitool command:

ipmitool -I lan -H 10.0.0.1 -p 623 -L "ADMINISTRATOR" -U "admin" -P "admin" raw 0x06 0x01

Example with serial interface:

import pyipmi
import pyipmi.interfaces

interface = pyipmi.interfaces.create_interface('ipmitool', interface_type='serial-terminal')

connection = pyipmi.create_connection(interface)

connection.target = pyipmi.Target(0xb2)

# set_session_type_serial(port, baudrate)
connection.session.set_session_type_serial('/dev/tty2', 115200)
connection.session.establish()

connection.get_device_id()

ipmitool command:

ipmitool -I serial-terminal -D /dev/tty2:115200 -t 0xb2 -l 0 raw 0x06 0x01

Example with the system interface using the Linux IPMI driver:

import pyipmi
import pyipmi.interfaces

interface = pyipmi.interfaces.create_interface('ipmidev', port='/dev/ipmi0')

connection = pyipmi.create_connection(interface)

connection.target = pyipmi.Target(0x20)

connection.open()
connection.get_device_id()
connection.close()

ipmitool command:

ipmitool -I open -t 0x20 raw 0x06 0x01

Bridged targets

In ATCA and MicroTCA systems the controllers of blades and AMCs are not reachable directly but only through the shelf manager or MCH, which forwards (bridges) the requests on IPMB. For these targets set the IPMB address of the target and the routing to it. A routing is a list of (requester address, responder address, channel) tuples, one per hop.

Example for an ATCA blade with IPMB address 0x82 behind the shelf manager:

connection.target = pyipmi.Target(0x82)
connection.target.set_routing([(0x81, 0x20, 0), (0x20, 0x82, None)])

ipmitool command:

ipmitool -I lan -H 10.0.0.1 -p 623 -L "ADMINISTRATOR" -U "admin" -P "admin" -t 0x82 -b 0 raw 0x06 0x01

Do not set a routing to talk to the BMC of a server itself, the bridged request fails then (e.g. with completion code 0x83, NAK on write).

Some shelf managers and carrier managers do not return the sequence number of a bridged request in their response. If requests time out although the device answers (the debug log shows discarding message that does not match the request), create the native interface with quirks_cfg={'rmcp_ignore_rq_seq': True}. With the ipmitool backend the routing needs the bridge channel of every hop except the last one. See the documentation for more routing examples.

Compatibility

Python >= 3.10 is currently supported. Python 2.x is deprecated.

Contributing

Contributions are always welcome. You may send patches directly (eg. git send-email), do a github pull request or just file an issue.

• respect the coding style (eg. PEP8),
• provide well-formed commit message (see this blog post),
• add a Signed-off-by line (eg. git commit -s)

License

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA