How to read server power using ipmitool

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chilipepperz

Active Member
Mar 17, 2016
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I'm looking for help in this. I want to be able to get the status from a Supermicro server that can monitor PSU usage but I can't figure out the ipmitool command

ipmitool -I -h x.x.x.x -U x -P x ______

Someone here must have done it?

Bonus is there a good way to log?

I want to build a Skylake to E5 V3 comparison on our workload.
 

chilipepperz

Active Member
Mar 17, 2016
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So... it's different based on each server??!?!

Code:
ipmitool -I lan -H 10.71.9.97 -U ADMIN -P ADMIN dcmi power reading
    Instantaneous power reading:                   388 Watts
    Minimum during sampling period:                 52 Watts
    Maximum during sampling period:                584 Watts
    Average power reading over sample period:      358 Watts
    IPMI timestamp:                           Fri Nov 10 17:58:36 2017
    Sampling period:                          01496902 Seconds.
    Power reading state is:                   activated
I just tried another server and it didn't work.
 

Aestr

Well-Known Member
Oct 22, 2014
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Seattle
What motherboards are you using? Certainly different generations can be a bit different. We see this with the fan settings for example.
 
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PigLover

Moderator
Jan 26, 2011
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The power readings are vendor specific dcmi data. In SMs case it is different depending on IPMI version. You'll also see slightly different out put on redundant PDBs that from single PSUs.

Also, the power supply needs to provide a compatible PMbus connection to the motherboard or you don't get any data. If there is no power data available then the dcmi tables won't be filled in and the command won't work (will return an error). See if you get power data when logging into the IPMI webUI. If its there then this should work.

One caution: I have seen cases where even running this command on MBs without power data on the PMbus can leave the IPMI controller in an unstable state that needs an IPMI reset to clear. I reported it to SM some time ago but never really pursued it. I don't remember the exact combination of boards and IPMI rev, but it was recent (IIRC, it was on an X10SDV Xeon-D board).
 
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