IPMI (experimental Go collector)

Plugin: ipmi.plugin Module: ipmi

Overview

Monitor hardware sensor readings, sensor health and System Event Log entries through IPMI.

Queries a local Linux OpenIPMI device or a remote BMC over IPMI 1.5 LAN or IPMI 2.0 LAN+ using the configured account. The collector reads sensors and SEL metadata; it does not change BMC configuration or clear the event log.

This collector is only supported on the following platforms:

• Linux

This collector supports collecting metrics from multiple instances of this integration.

Permission	Needed when
Read/write access to the selected OpenIPMI device	Collecting locally with driver: open.
BMC account with User privilege and LAN access	Collecting remotely with driver: lan or driver: lanplus. Some BMC policies require a higher session privilege.

Installation grants no setuid mode, capabilities or device permissions. Remote collection requires no elevated privileges on the Agent host.

Default Behavior

Auto-Detection

No jobs start by default. Build the experimental plugin explicitly and configure the target.

Limits

This experimental plugin requires Linux amd64 or arm64. Keep FreeIPMI for legacy direct drivers, OEM interpretation or custom FreeIPMI interpretation files. Unknown or unavailable sensor readings leave gaps. Default FreeIPMI policy treats non-critical threshold assertions as nominal. Do not run both IPMI plugins against the same host with the canonical ipmi job name because chart IDs overlap. The Go collector uses separate ipmi_go.* contexts and the ipmi-go-sensors Function.

Performance Impact

IPMI command latency grows with sensor count. Increase update_every when a complete sensor scan takes longer than the configured interval.

Setup

Prerequisites

Build the experimental plugin

Run sudo ./netdata-installer.sh --enable-plugin-ipmi from a source checkout. The option is OFF in production builds. Installation uses ordinary executable permissions.

Select one IPMI plugin

Before collecting the same host with the canonical ipmi job name, set freeipmi = no in the [plugins] section of netdata.conf. Use a trusted configuration and explicit sudo invocation for local debugging when the device is root-only. For normal Agent execution, arrange device access according to the host security policy.

Enable remote BMC access

For LAN/LAN+, enable IPMI over LAN on the BMC, configure an account with User privilege, and allow UDP traffic from the Agent to the BMC port (623 by default). Select a higher privilege only if the BMC access policy requires it.

Configuration

Options

Options apply to each IPMI job. Configure one local device or remote BMC per job.

Group	Option	Description	Default	Required
Connection	driver	IPMI transport: local Linux OpenIPMI, IPMI 1.5 LAN or IPMI 2.0 LAN+.	open	no
	device	Local OpenIPMI device number.	0	no
	hostname	BMC hostname or IP address for LAN/LAN+, without a URL scheme or port.		yes
	port	BMC UDP port for LAN/LAN+.	623	no
	username	BMC account for LAN/LAN+. Leave empty only for anonymous access.		no
	password	BMC account password for LAN/LAN+. Leave empty only if the account has no password.		no
	privilege_level	Session privilege requested from the BMC. User privilege is sufficient for standard sensor and SEL commands.	user	no
Collection	update_every	Data collection frequency in seconds.	5	no
	timeout	Timeout for session setup and for each IPMI command.	5s	no
	collect_sel	Collect the System Event Log entry count.	yes	no
Virtual Node	vnode	Associates this job with a Virtual Node.		no

via File

The configuration file name for this integration is ipmi/ipmi.conf.

You can edit the configuration file using the edit-config script from the Netdata config directory.

cd /etc/netdata 2>/dev/null || cd /opt/netdata/etc/netdata
sudo ./edit-config ipmi/ipmi.conf

Examples

Local device

Monitor the first kernel IPMI device.

jobs:
  - name: ipmi
    driver: open

Remote BMC

Monitor a remote BMC using IPMI 2.0. Use driver lan for BMCs that require IPMI 1.5.

jobs:
  - name: server-bmc
    driver: lanplus
    hostname: bmc.example
    username: monitor
    password: '${env:IPMI_PASSWORD}'

Attach a remote BMC to a virtual node

Define server-node in vnodes.conf first. Without vnode, metrics belong to the Agent host.

jobs:
  - name: server-bmc
    driver: lanplus
    hostname: bmc.example
    username: monitor
    password: '${env:IPMI_PASSWORD}'
    vnode: server-node

Alerts

The following alerts are available:

Alert name	On metric	Description
Alert name ipmi_go_sensor_state	On metricipmi_go.sensor_state	DescriptionIPMI sensor ${label:sensor} (${label:component}) state
Alert name ipmi_events	On metricipmi_go.sel	Descriptionnumber of events in the IPMI System Event Log (SEL)

Metrics

Metrics grouped by scope.

The scope defines the instance that the metric belongs to. An instance is uniquely identified by a set of labels.

Each sensor has its own reading and state chart. SEL is the raw repository entry count, including records FreeIPMI may filter during interpretation. The stock SEL alarm targets the canonical local ipmi.events chart; other job chart IDs include the job name.

Per sensor

A sensor on the selected BMC.

Labels:

Label	Description
sensor	Sensor name.
type	IPMI sensor type.
component	Component inferred from the sensor name and type.

Metrics:

Metric	Description	Dimensions	Unit
ipmi_go.sensor_temperature_c	IPMI Sensor Temperature	temperature	Celsius
ipmi_go.sensor_temperature_f	IPMI Sensor Temperature	temperature	Fahrenheit
ipmi_go.sensor_voltage	IPMI Sensor Voltage	voltage	Volts
ipmi_go.sensor_ampere	IPMI Sensor Current	ampere	Amps
ipmi_go.sensor_fan_speed	IPMI Sensor Fan Speed	rotations	RPM
ipmi_go.sensor_power	IPMI Sensor Power	power	Watts
ipmi_go.sensor_reading_percent	IPMI Sensor Percentage Reading	percentage	%
ipmi_go.sensor_state	IPMI Sensor State	nominal, warning, critical, unknown	state

Per IPMI (experimental Go collector) instance

The selected BMC System Event Log.

This scope has no labels.

Metrics:

Metric	Description	Dimensions	Unit
ipmi_go.sel	IPMI System Event Log Entries	events	events

Live Data

Inspect the latest successful collection without issuing more IPMI commands.

IPMI Sensors

Show current readings and default FreeIPMI health states, with sensor counts by component and state.

Aspect	Description
Name	Ipmi-go-sensors
Require Cloud	no
Performance	Reads the latest completed snapshot without additional BMC requests.
Security	Read-only sensor data from the configured target.
Availability	Available while a collection job runs. Returns HTTP 503 before the first successful collection or after a collection failure.

Prerequisites

No additional configuration is required.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Required	Default	Options
Instance	select	Select the IPMI collection job.	no	First available job

Returns

One row per discovered full or compact sensor record, expanded for sharing. Unavailable numeric readings are null.

Column	Type	Unit	Visibility	Description
Sensor	string			Sensor name.
Type	string			IPMI sensor type.
Component	string			Component inferred from the sensor name and type.
Reading	float			Current reading; null when unavailable.
Units	string			Reading units; null for discrete sensors.
State	string			Default FreeIPMI health interpretation.
Key	string		hidden	Stable sensor identity within the collection job.
rowOptions	none		hidden	Row health severity.

Troubleshooting

Known Errors

permission denied

Cause

The plugin account cannot open the local IPMI device for reading and writing.

Fix

Grant device access through the host security policy, or run a trusted local test explicitly with sudo. Rebuilding the plugin does not grant device access.