Fan RPM threshold in vsphere 6.5?

[dswartz]

So I have a new vsphere server. It's in a full-ATX case, with 4 case fans (front, back, top and door). All but the front fan are large (140mm) and run relatively slowly (700 RPM - this is by design - the supermicro IPMI thinks this is fine - these all show up as green status). Unfortunately, 700 RPM seems to be 'too low' for ESXi, as the health information shows those 3 fans as low non-critical.) I've been looking like crazy online, but I can't seem to find anywhere that you can adjust these thresholds. Any tips appreciated

 

[Peanuthead]

I thought it pulled this thresholds from either the BMC or bios.

 

[dswartz]

So did I, but when I go to the IPMI sensors page, all 6 fans show a green block to the left of the fan name, and the status shows as 'Normal'. If vsphere 6.5 had an ipmitool installed, I'd double-check there, but it doesn't

 

[vinceflynow]

Vmware pulls the fan sensor from BMC/IPMI CIM.

You can set the lower non-critical threshold using ipmitool. For example:

$ ipmitool -I lanplus -U ADMIN -H 192.168.1.2 sensor thresh FAN1
Password:
sensor thresh <id> <threshold> <setting>
   id        : name of the sensor for which threshold is to be set
   threshold : which threshold to set
                 unr = upper non-recoverable
                 ucr = upper critical
                 unc = upper non-critical
                 lnc = lower non-critical
                 lcr = lower critical
                 lnr = lower non-recoverable
   setting   : the value to set the threshold to

sensor thresh <id> lower <lnr> <lcr> <lnc>
   Set all lower thresholds at the same time

sensor thresh <id> upper <unc> <ucr> <unr>
   Set all upper thresholds at the same time

This post has some examples.

 

[dswartz]

I'm very confused now. I saw a button in the sensors screen in the IPMI web page. When I enable showing thresholds, it shows Low NR as 300 and Low CT as 500. The 3 fans in question are spinning at 700. Sadly, the page doesn't seem to show the Low non-crit - I'm guessing it's above 700 My 6.5 install doesn't seem to have ipmitool, and the one I get on a typical linux distro doesn't seem to want to talk to my SM motherboard

 

[Rand__]

So did I, but when I go to the IPMI sensors page, all 6 fans show a green block to the left of the fan name, and the status shows as 'Normal'. If vsphere 6.5 had an ipmitool installed, I'd double-check there, but it doesn't

ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/utility/IPMICFG/

the linux version should run on esx (meaning the slightly older version i use works fine, have not tested that newer release)

 

[Peanuthead]

Subscribing. I have a system I can try this on later tonight.

 

[vinceflynow]

Strange the ipmitool is not recognizing your SM Board. (Perhaps, the BMC firmware needs update ?) I'm not doing anything anything special to get ipmitool. On Unbuntu 17.04:

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install ipmitool
$ sudo modprobe ipmi_devintf

 

[dswartz]

It's some weird SM thing. I found a statically linked ipmitool some guy on github ginned up - it seems to work. Digging into it now...

 

[dswartz]

That did the trick! All green now. Thanks guys! I dunno why the IPMI sensors page was showing normal status, but whatever...

 

[Peanuthead]

Woot!

 

[vinceflynow]

I also noticed that my SM IPMI Web UI (X10DRG-Q motherboard), does not show the Lower Non-Critical (
LNC) fan values. So, got curious, and looked at what the default value for lnc was for my motherboard.

ipmitool -I lan -U ADMIN -H 192.168.1.2 sensor get FAN1
Password:
Locating sensor record...
Sensor ID              : FAN1 (0x41)
 Entity ID             : 29.1
 Sensor Type (Threshold)  : Fan
 Sensor Reading        : 1700 (+/- 0) RPM
 Status                : ok
 Lower Non-Recoverable : 300.000
 Lower Critical        : 500.000
 Lower Non-Critical    : 700.000
 Upper Non-Critical    : 25300.000
 Upper Critical        : 25400.000
 Upper Non-Recoverable : 25500.000
 Positive Hysteresis   : Unspecified
 Negative Hysteresis   : Unspecified
 Assertion Events      :
 Assertions Enabled    : lcr- lnr- ucr+ unr+
 Deassertions Enabled  : lcr- lnr- ucr+ unr+

Looks like the LNC is right at 700 (atleast for my SM motherboard).

 

[dswartz]

Strange the ipmitool is not recognizing your SM Board. (Perhaps, the BMC firmware needs update ?) I'm not doing anything anything special to get ipmitool. On Unbuntu 17.04:

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install ipmitool
$ sudo modprobe ipmi_devintf

I just realized I was unclear on something earlier. When I said linux ipmitool wasn't working, I meant over the LAN. All kinds of weird error messages. Running it on the host itself might very well have worked, I dunno. Just glad it's good to go now. Thanks for the help, all...

 

[dswartz]

I also noticed that my SM IPMI Web UI (X10DRG-Q motherboard), does not show the Lower Non-Critical (
LNC) fan values. So, got curious, and looked at what the default value for lnc was for my motherboard.

ipmitool -I lan -U ADMIN -H 192.168.1.2 sensor get FAN1
Password:
Locating sensor record...
Sensor ID              : FAN1 (0x41)
 Entity ID             : 29.1
 Sensor Type (Threshold)  : Fan
 Sensor Reading        : 1700 (+/- 0) RPM
 Status                : ok
 Lower Non-Recoverable : 300.000
 Lower Critical        : 500.000
 Lower Non-Critical    : 700.000
 Upper Non-Critical    : 25300.000
 Upper Critical        : 25400.000
 Upper Non-Recoverable : 25500.000
 Positive Hysteresis   : Unspecified
 Negative Hysteresis   : Unspecified
 Assertion Events      :
 Assertions Enabled    : lcr- lnr- ucr+ unr+
 Deassertions Enabled  : lcr- lnr- ucr+ unr+

Looks like the LNC is right at 700 (atleast for my SM motherboard).

I just checked. Same here lol...