joshuaboniface/rpibmc

A BMC (LOM) created with a Raspberry Pi

RPiBMC

ARCHIVED: I no longer use this project, having never gotten the RS232 serial portion to work right, and then replacing the old BMC-less server motherboards I created this for with IPMI-capable ones back in 2019. As I no longer have any need or interest in this project, please consider it obsolete.

If you're looking for a modern replacement, check out https://www.pikvm.org/ which does all the things I wanted this to do, far far better than I could.

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A BMC (LOM) created with a Raspberry Pi.

Allows one to build a Raspberry Pi-based BMC unit for an IPMI-less server. The Raspbian system must include the package screen and (via pip) the Python libraries python-daemon and raspberry-gpio-python (installed by default).

More information can be found here: https://www.boniface.me/post/a-raspberry-pi-bmc/

There are three main files:

1. bmcd - BMC Daemon

   Runs in the background of the system and handles reading and writing GPIO.

2. bmc.sh - The BMC shell

   Should be set as the default shell of the login user (bmc) and provides user interface to the BMC.

3. rc.local - The rc.local file

   The system rc.local should be replaced (or symlinked) to this file to start the bmcd daemon and screen console session on boot.

rpibmc's Issues

Use RaspberryPi Zero WH as keyboard

Using RPi Zero as a Keyboard Part 1: Setup and device definition
Just one USB-A->USB mircro-B cabel for keyboard and power-supply.

Power button, serial port, mouse, ethernet, mass-storage (e.g. OS ISOs) is also possible with the Linux USB gadget drivers.

Videograbber

An USB UVC videograbber or the B102 HDMI to CSI-2 Bridge can be used to get the video output of a server.

Missing Files and Permission Denied

Thanks for providing this tool. I'm excited to get it working correctly and use it.

I'm having an issue when trying to run it. When I first connect to the bmc user via SSH, this displays:

cat: /etc/bmchost: No such file or directory
cat: /run/bmcd/bmcd.state: No such file or directory

When I try running any of the commands, the following example of power is what displays:

[bmc01]> power
Pressing power switch.
/bin/bmc.sh: line 75: /run/bmcd/bmcd.cmd: Permission denied
cat: /run/bmcd/bmcd.state: No such file or directory
Host state: Off

I have changed all three main files permissions by adding them to the group sudo instead of root. That did not seem to fix what I am seeing above though.

Please let me know what I can troubleshoot or test to help get things working.

Thanks again!