pfsense - access ipmi using ipmitool

Recently i needed to access an inaccessible ipmi on a system running pfsense / freebsd.

Luckily current pfsense releases come with ipmitool shipped. So let's try it:

ipmitool
Could not open device at /dev/ipmi0 or /dev/ipmi/0 or /dev/ipmidev/0: No such file or directory

access ipmi

As you can see, ipmitool is searching for the ipmi device folders, but these are available. The reason for this is because the required kernel driver is not loaded by default (a reasonable decision because the number of use cases is rare). So let's load the module.

kldload ipmi

load module

Having loaded the module we can access the ipmi.

ipmitool sdr
CPU Temp         | 45 degrees C      | ok
System Temp      | 42 degrees C      | ok
Peripheral Temp  | 41 degrees C      | ok
DIMMA1 Temp      | 42 degrees C      | ok
DIMMA2 Temp      | 43 degrees C      | ok
DIMMB1 Temp      | no reading        | ns
DIMMB2 Temp      | no reading        | ns
FAN1             | 3700 RPM          | ok
FAN2             | no reading        | ns
FAN3             | no reading        | ns
VCCP             | 0.84 Volts        | ok
VDIMM            | 1.33 Volts        | ok
12V              | 12.32 Volts       | ok
5VCC             | 4.90 Volts        | ok
3.3VCC           | 3.27 Volts        | ok
VBAT             | 3.14 Volts        | ok
5V Dual          | 4.89 Volts        | ok
3.3V AUX         | 3.30 Volts        | ok
Chassis Intru    | 0x00              | ok

working ipmitool

After having done the required configuration, let's unload the module again.

kldunload ipmi

unload module after use

Always load the module

In case you need to load the module on every boot, you'll need to configure the bootloader by editing /boot/loader.conf and adding the following content:

# load ipmi.ko on boot
ipmi_load="YES"

/boot/loader.conf

Manual modification This configuration is not part of pfsense's config.xml and therefore not included in any config backups / restores.

That's it. Hope this helps!