Unable to connect to a BMC Serial Console

[James Mihm]

Hi Shubh,

Is your goal to replace the Intel BMC firmware stack with an OpenBMC
firmware image?

The Intel S2600GZ server (a.k.a., Grizzly Pass) is an older server with an
Emulex Pilot 2
BMC PSoC with a proprietary firmware stack. Furthermore, the Pilot series
of BMC is not
supported by OpenBMC. Whereas the S2600STP (a.k.a., Sawtooth Pass), that
Jeremy has
referenced, has the AST2500 BMC PSoC and is supported by OpenBMC.

To make things more challenging for hackers, Intel platforms don't have the
BMC serial port
normally accessible. Meaning that the hardware to connect to the BMC serial
port isn't
populated and logging into the BMC via the serial console is disabled.

Regards, James.

On Mon, Oct 10, 2022 at 6:16 PM Jeremy Kerr <jk at codeconstruct.com.au> wrote:

> Hi Shubh,
>
> > TCS Confidential
>
> Really? :)
>
> > I am new to OpenBMC and I need some help about how to access the BMC
> > console which I am not able to, after many tries.
>
> Just to confirm - you're referring to the console for the BMC system
> itself, right? As distinct from the host serial.
>
> > Currently, I have connected my Host Server (i.e., Thinkstation P510 –
> > Intel X86-64 CPU installed with OS: Ubuntu 18.04)
> > with Intel Server Board S2600GZ (OS :Ubuntu 14) which has a BMC chip
> > using aUSB-TTL Serial console cable
> > (“xcluma Usb To Ttl Serial Cable Debugger For Raspberry Pi Beaglebone
> > Cubietruck”.)
> > The minicom is not showing me any prompt & it’s paused; nothing is
> > going ahead.
>
> A few things to check:
>
>  - Where have you attached to the TTL signals? Are you sure that's a
>    BMC serial port?
>  - What are you expecting to see there? The BMC might only be
>    outputting console data during boot.
>  - Are you using the correct baud rate? (since there should be
>    activity on the TX line during boot, you can use this to find the
>    TX line and set your baud rate)
>
> I'm not familiar with the S2600GZ, but I have done a bit of OpenBMC
> development using a S2600STB platform, which may be similar. In that
> case, slides 25 and 28 of this might help:
>
>
> http://jk.ozlabs.org/docs/lca2021/lca2021%20-%20Server%20platforms%20-%20Jeremy%20Kerr.pdf
>
> Otherwise, maybe Intel folks here can provide better connection details
> for the GZ.
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> Jeremy
>
>
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