Mini PC with IPMI?

[jester]

Forgive me if this is the wrong subforum, but I wasn't sure what would be appropriate.

I need a small, low-power, inexpensive server to do some network-y testing tasks. It will live in a not-easily-accessible location, and I'll regularly be playing around with the OS, so I'd like to get one with IPMI. Does such a thing exist? I'm not having much luck searching; search engines seem to think I mean "HDMI" or something.

 

[BlueFox]

On the Intel side, anything with vPro has IPMI. You can get NUCs and other compact devices that support it.

 

[i386]

there are some mini itx based systems with xeon d socs, but they are not cheap

 

[FingerBlaster]

There's also the pikvm and similar devices, they are expensive. I'd look for intel vpro/amt and set up mesh commander

 

[Markess]

On the Intel side, anything with vPro has IPMI. You can get NUCs and other compact devices that support it.

Intel's implementation, has most of what you'd expect, but has some quirks and caveats too. For example, if you're assembling your own system, you need a vPro capable motherboard AND a vPro capable CPU for remote management to work. Plus (and maybe this has changed with recent versions?) you need a CPU with integrated graphics if you plan to use remote console/KVM.

I've used several generations of Intel's remote management solution on and off for a while, ever since @BlueFox recommended it to me a couple years back. Mostly ITX motherboards, and one HP Elitedesk 800 G3 mini. All of them with i5 CPUs to keep costs down. The tradeoff being no ECC.
Intel adds/refines features with each version of the remote management part of vPro. Here's a chart from Wikipedia that summarizes the features, plus which generation(s) of hardware have them: Intel AMT versions - Wikipedia

 

[BlueFox]

I've used several generations of Intel's remote management solution on and off for a while, ever since @BlueFox recommended it to me a couple years back. Mostly ITX motherboards, and one HP Elitedesk 800 G3 mini. All of them with i5 CPUs to keep costs down. The tradeoff being no ECC.

You can have vPro and ECC actually (including in ITX format). My desktop has both. Just needs to be one of the W series chipsets instead of the Q series. Technically the industrial chipsets do too (like the R680E), but they're kinda niche and expensive.

 

[Markess]

You can have vPro and ECC actually (including in ITX format). My desktop has both. Just needs to be one of the W series chipsets instead of the Q series. Technically the industrial chipsets do too (like the R680E), but they're kinda niche and expensive.

Nice! I'm not as up on the newer offerings, but knew that with the slightly older stuff, small AND inexpensive AND ECC didn't go together well. W Series chipsets are more approachable price wise though!

 

[jester]

I think this will end up not working out for me; I didn't realize that IPMI would vault this into the "serious" category (I _certainly_ don't need ECC for this!). I was imagining there would be some $200 Beelink kind of thing with an IPMI option. If it's going to be $1000, I'll just have to live with inconvenience, use a VM for this task, or something like that.

 

[BlueFox]

It can definitely be had for $200. Example: Lenovo ThinkCentre M90n-1, i5-8365U, 1.60GHz, 8GB RAM, 256GB NVMe, No AC C4*203 | eBay

There are other options if you want more RAM (like the aforementioned Intel NUC).

 

[jester]

It can definitely be had for $200. Example: Lenovo ThinkCentre M90n-1, i5-8365U, 1.60GHz, 8GB RAM, 256GB NVMe, No AC C4*203 | eBay

There are other options if you want more RAM (like the aforementioned Intel NUC).

I don't need more RAM, but that doesn't seem to have an IPMI port? I only see one RJ45 jack in the picture.

Even on eBay, the NUCs with vPro (at least the few I'm seeing with a search) are a fair amount of money.

 

[BlueFox]

IPMI doesn't require a dedicated NIC. It's just more prevalent on server motherboards.

 

[reasonsandreasons]

Is there a best practices guide for using AMT as an IPMI solution in a home setting, ideally from Linux or macOS? I have a W690 board with MeshCommander firmware loader and right now it's in the "better than nothing" category. I'd like to be able to use it more, but so far I've been less than impressed.

 

[jester]

IPMI doesn't require a dedicated NIC. It's just more prevalent on server motherboards.

Huh, learn something every day! Thanks.

 

[Markess]

If this is mostly for testing/experience and not archiving data, you can even go for something like this: HP EliteDesk 800 G3 35W Mini PC Computer - Intel i5-6500T 2.5Ghz 8GB + Adapter | eBay

Its 1 (or 2 for some parts) generations older tech than the one @BlueFox linked. But, at $65 shipped, its cheaper and you can still run most of the modern software on SkyLake generation parts.

 

[hmw]

Anything with IPMI is going to be enterprise and that is $$$. For example a C3000 series motherboard with IPMI is $350 new: ASRock Rack C3558D4I-4L Atom C3558 Mini ITX Motherboard w/ Quad GbE LAN, IPMI, 13 x SATA Connectors

You might probably get refurb or on eBay with memory included for $200 ~ $250. Funnily enough, you often get used Supermicro or ASRock barebones with these motherboards for even less.

Hah - there's something advertising the C3558D4 motherboard on fleabay for $250 but the pics show a C2550

 

[Oarman]

vPro can do most of what full-bore IPMI does but can be quirky in ways you want to figure out while the box is still local. For instance my HP EliteDesk needed an HDMI dummy plug to reliably display graphics remotely.

 

[Markess]

vPro can do most of what full-bore IPMI does but can be quirky in ways you want to figure out while the box is still local.

THIS. Especially for folks used to working with IPMI implementations from Supermicro etc. Bit of a learning curve.

 

[jester]

OK, I was too embarrassed to ask originally, but now: Is there a place where this functionality is explained clearly? The use case is that I want to plug this thing in to my network with an RJ45 jack, without an OS and without a monitor/keyboard attached (but with access to the box, so I can plug in a USB boot drive), and I'd like to install an OS onto it. Once I can ssh in, I'm good.

That's it. Will it do this? How do I get to it after I plug Ethernet in?

 

[oneplane]

You have to have a monitor attached at least once to enable AMT and configure it. After that you can do with just ethernet. Personally I don't install something with a GUI on that, so I'd just use serial-over-LAN for the installer if I were to do it interactively. (but I don't, I use PXE and auto-install if the MAC address is allowed to auto-self-install, wouldn't want to accidentally wipe something if someone comes along with a bad boot configuration)

If serial-over-LAN is good enough for you and you have everything setup, you can use something like gamt or amttool, or a GUI thing, there are quite a lot of options: AMT/SerialOverLan - Debian Wiki https://linux.die.net/man/1/amtterm

You do have to tell the programs that you want to use which serial port to spawn on, i.e. GRUB and Getty will need to be told that you do in fact want to use that serial port. Same goes for remote UEFI setup, that can be done over serial (including serial-over-lan) as well.

Of course, all of this also works in graphical mode, but I've found the text-over-graphics thing to always be a bit weird; can't copy and paste etc. for example, and text performance is almost always better.