Changing network boot order (pxe) using ipmitool

Question

Using ipmitool, I am trying to change the boot order to pxe boot first and from a particular interface.

As far as I am aware, ipmitool tool provides option to change the boot device but not interfaces. For example, I can change the boot order to pxe:

ipmitool -I lanplus -H bmc_ip -U root -P passwd chassis bootdev pxe options=persistent

Is there any way to set network boot order (i.e. a specific interface to pxe boot from) as well?

There doesn't seem to be any option through bootdev or bootparam options of ipmitool. I was wondering if this could be achieved using the raw mode or in any other way?

Obvious alternative is to enter the bios manually or through ipmitool. But I am interested in doing this without manual interaction.

Solution

IPMI does not support ordering of physical Ethernet interfaces for PXE boot. The latest release of IPMI 2.0 supports multiple IP addresses (IPMI 2.0 version 1.1, February 2014) for a single physical Ethernet interface and none of the free IPMI tools support that.

It may be possible to hack a solution where you disable all IP addresses except the one you want and PXE boot would happen using the single available IP. I have never seen this done.

What module server are you using? It is very, very rare there are multiple physical Ethernets on a server that support IPMI. If the server vendor has gone to that much trouble and expense is there an OEM command that implements the function you want?

Comments

[Stefan Lasiewski]

Using Supermicro X8 & X9 motherboards, you cannot specify the interface. You can only tell the system to PXEboot, and it will PXEboot in the order specified in the BIOS. You can reorder the PXEboot order in the BIOS, and change/disable which interfaces provide PXE, but that's all I've been able to do.

[Stefan Lasiewski]

> It is very,very rare there are multiple physical Ethernets on a server that support IPMI. I'm not sure what you mean by this. Every Intel and Supermicro server that I've had has two NICs on the back. NIC0 does the PXE by default.