Linux_hpc_swstack - Sep 2008 - Serial / Remote KVM Questions with X6250s

Hello,

I have a few queries regarding serial console and remote KVM access to
X6250 blades.

I''m currently running BIOS version 1ADPI040 and BMC version 4.0.52 on a
group of X6250s.  I''m using conman to access their serial terminals
through the SMASH CLI with the updated expect script that''s attached to
the following message:

http://lists.lustre.org/pipermail/linux_hpc_swstack/2008-August/000065.html

I''m also using the ELOM Java Web Start remote KVM software to access
the
the blades'' remote KVMs.

Remote KVM and serial access is simultaneously available.

All of this stuff works for the most part, but there are a few things
I''d like to ask about:

Serial Access
=============
      * The blades seem to be capped at 9600 bps for their serial
        connection (see the attached serial-bios.png).  Is this really
        all that''s possible in terms of serial speed?  I frequently
        observe nodes over a serial connection that are spewing lots of
        stuff to their console, and a faster serial connection would be
        very valuable to me.
      * Though access to a blade''s serial port through the SMASH CLI
        seems to be a fine mechanism for out-of-band console, I''m also
        interested in exploring serial-over-LAN via IPMI (with freeipmi
        specifically), but I haven''t been able to get this to work.
        It''s advertized as working in the Sun docs.  Am I doing
        something wrong with "ipmiconsole -W authcap -h sp-hostname -u
        root -p changeme"?  It doesn''t work for me.  Should I
expect it
        to?

Remote KVM Access
=================
      * Accessing the BIOS setup screen from the remote KVM software is
        very touchy.  E.g., a single "right arrow" keystroke on my
        keyboard often gets translated into multiple keystrokes on the
        remote machine.  This makes adjusting BIOS settings via the
        remote KVM a very frustrating process.  Is there any way to
        improve this interaction?  I note that there''s a VGA animation
        always churning across the top margin of the BIOS setup screen.
        Is the extra bandwidth needed for this animation messing with
        the interactivity?  If so, is there a way to disable the
        animation?

Thanks,

-Matthew
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