I'm working with server automation tools on some Dell C2100 and C1100 servers. What I intend to do is connecting via Serial Over Lan using ipmi.
A few weeks ago, I was able to connect to one of my servers using ipmi-console (from freeipmi), like this:
ipmi-console -h IPADDRESS -u USER -P
This started up a SOL connection, and this way I was able to automate some interactions with the server's BIOS settings and other stuff.
However, a few days later, the same script didn't work anymore. It just says "[SOL established]", and that's it: the SOL connection never shows any feedback, and it stays idle until I close the connection.
My question is: what could possibly have changed that the SOL connection is not working anymore.
I obviously checked for anything related to SOL and IPMI, both in BIOS settings and using BMC web GUI. But everything looks normal, and I didn't recall to have changed anything there between the time the connections worked and then they stopped working. IDK what else to check, and it just fails w/o errors anywhere.
Perhaps this is a common thing with IPMI and/or SOL, but I frankly don't understand it. So, any pointer would be nice.
Thanks in advance.
Finally, I've found what was going on.
It happened that somehow a value DID change on the BIOS settings, most likely my own mistake: remote connection ability was disabled. That means, it seems, that SOL works, but it doesn't redirect anything. Given that I was able to connect through SOL, it seemed obvious that remote connection ability was enabled.
Once enabled that BIOS setting, everything was back to normal.
BTW: freeipmi is awesome. Thanks for maintaining it Albert.