kipmi0 process high cpu utilization

Question

Running top on one of our debian 8 dedicated servers and noticed process kipmi0 utilizing 100% cpu. First off...does anyone know what this process is for, what it does, or what program is using it? Is it safe to remove and if so what needs to be changed to remove it and insure it does not start again when server reboots?

Solution

kipmi0 is the kernel process used for interfacing with the IPMI controller on your server.

In my experience, if it's stuck using 100% CPU like this, it's because the interface between the server and the IPMI controller stack has locked up, and if you reset the IPMI stack it'll come right. Reasons for it locking up are pretty varied, but a common one I've come across is a network scanning tool like Solarwinds or Nessus trying to scan the web interface or the IPMI network port (TCP/623 or UDP/623).

IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) controllers are often referred to as BMC (Baseboard Management Controller), and are branded differently - Dell calls them DRAC, HP calls them ILO, etc. How to reset them will vary greatly depending on the platform.

If you really don't use the host-IPMI interface, you could stop the various ipmi_* kernel module from loading on boot. How to do this will depend on your distro, here is a debian page on the subject.

This page has some good information.