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Is it possible to reset the password on a SuperMicro IPMI interface?

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Original source (serverfault.com)
Tags: howto password-reset supermicro ipmi serverfault.com
Clipped on: 2019-02-02

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I've done it on a HP DL585 system, and manipulated IPMI values on Sun X2200-M2 and V20z computers, so there's probably a way. I'd poke around on the Supermicro site. – David Mackintosh Nov 16 '09 at 4:14
  • what about same procedure for JBOD? You can't connect with ipmicfg or tool. Need to target the IP address and authenticate before you can change anything. Is there a battery to pull or a jumper to reset that actually resets the creds back to default? Thanks. – Kevin Aug 2 '16 at 20:52
    • 25

    If you access it locally you can specify a new password. On Linux this would be done via ipmitool. Something like this should work:

    ipmitool -I open lan set 1 password NEWPASSWORD

    If you don't know which channel is your ethernet interface, just page through them one at at time, like so:

    # ipmitool -I open channel info 1
Channel 0x1 info:
  Channel Medium Type   : 802.3 LAN
  Channel Protocol Type : IPMB-1.0
  Session Support       : multi-session
  Active Session Count  : 0
  Protocol Vendor ID    : 7154
  Volatile(active) Settings
    Alerting            : disabled
    Per-message Auth    : disabled
    User Level Auth     : enabled
    Access Mode         : always available
  Non-Volatile Settings
    Alerting            : disabled
    Per-message Auth    : disabled
    User Level Auth     : enabled
    Access Mode         : always available

    Note that the medium type is "802.3 LAN". That's the one you want. Other channels may look like this:

    # ipmitool -I open channel info 2
Channel 0x2 info:
  Channel Medium Type   : Serial/Modem
  Channel Protocol Type : IPMB-1.0
  Session Support       : single-session
  Active Session Count  : 0
  Protocol Vendor ID    : 7154
# ipmitool -I open channel info 3
Channel 0x3 info:
  Channel Medium Type   : System Interface
  Channel Protocol Type : KCS
  Session Support       : session-less
  Active Session Count  : 0
  Protocol Vendor ID    : 7154
    answered Nov 16 '09 at 7:37
    When you refer to linux os, you mean that i should connect to the server locally with a laptop under linux and then issue those commands? Also, do i need to connect directly to the ipmi interface right? – madpato Nov 17 '09 at 13:53
  • When I mentioned Linux, it was because you didn't specify the OS in your post and that's the only one I know. If you're using Windows, it wouldn't work to just connect with a Linux laptop, but you should be able to boot off a Linux live CD (e.g., Knoppix) and use the ipmitool command there. It would probably be easier to find a native utility for Windows. It looks like ipmiutil is available for Windows. It looks like ipmiutil is available. Also check this out serverfault.com/questions/1395/how-to-utilize-ipmi-on-windows – Insyte Nov 17 '09 at 17:29
  • well i forgot to mention that it is a linux os, debian lenny 64. so i could do it remotely (i dont wanna go to my dc) The system is running fine, i'm just worried if i ever need it i will not have the password to access it. – madpato Nov 23 '09 at 16:34
  • Then what I described should work: Log in remotely via ssh and set the IPMI password. When I said "locally" I meant that you would be running ipmitool while logged into the server, not on another host. – Insyte Nov 23 '09 at 20:25
  • You'll need to load the modules: modprobe ipmi_si; modprobe ipmi_devintf; modprobe ipmi_msghandler – Insyte Nov 24 '09 at 23:02
    • 20

    I just had to deal with this same issue yesterday, I was not able to log into my SuperMicro IPMI web interface because I had not used it frequently and forgot the password. The command in Insyte's answer did not work for me but it was close. This command worked to reset the ADMIN account's password:

    ipmitool -I open user set password 2 ADMIN

    The number 2 there is the user id. The ADMIN account defaults to user id 2. So I'm setting user id 2's password to ADMIN which is the default, but you could put any other password there.

    Thank you to Insyte for pointing me on the right track of using ipmitool, after a few searches online I was able to find this working command. Hopefully it will help someone else that stumbles on this question.

    answered Jul 14 '11 at 21:00
    Thanks, this worked for an X8DTU. I needed to 'yum install OpenIPMI' and then 'service ipmi start' which loads the modules for you. EL6 in this case. – Bill McGonigle Aug 20 '15 at 17:31
    9

    Supermicro IPMI BMCs can be fairly erratic and troublesome. You should always use the utilities and tools provided by Supermicro before attempting a fix with universal tools such as IPMITool.

    It is not necessary to reset the entire unit as others have suggested.

    If you have physical access to the server, follow these simple steps to reset the ADMIN password on your IPMI:

    1. Create a bootable DOS USB stick using Rufus.
    2. Download the latest IPMICFG utility released by Supermicro.
    3. Extract the archive and copy the contents of the 'DOS' folder on to your bootable DOS USB.
    4. Boot your server into DOS and navigate to the 'DOS' folder you copied on to the USB.

    5. Get the user ID of the IPMI user whose password you want to set:

      ipmicfg -user list

    6. Set a new password for that user (the ADMIN user typically has an ID of 2):

      ipmicfg -user setpwd 2 your_password_here

    7. Login to the IPMI web GUI using the password you just set.

    I've reset the ADMIN password on dozens of Supermicro IPMI BMCs. Of all the methods I've tried, this is the only procedure that works 100% of the time.

    Note: If you already have Windows or Linux installed on your system, then you can skip steps 1, 3 and 4 and merely execute the commands in steps 5 and 6 using the appropriate executable from the Supermicro toolkit downloaded in step 2. If you are using Linux and you encounter kcs_error_exit messages when invoking ipmicfg commands, then you need to install the OpenIPMI library and enable the ipmi_devintf kernel module.

    The following commands work on CentOS 6:

    yum -y install OpenIPMI
modprobe ipmi_devintf

    Remember that the command modprobe ipmi_devintf will need to be re-run every time you reboot the server.

    answered Jun 30 '14 at 5:21
    Best answer ever. Thanks for sharing! :) – tftd Jan 13 '18 at 3:01
    5

    Best way is to reset to defaults and clear FRU&LAN with SuperMicro native tool, like so:

    ./ipmicfg-linux.x86_64 -fde

    (All this may take a few seconds to take effect, so wait between commands!)

    Now turn off the DHCP setting restored from factory defaults with

    ./ipmicfg-linux.x86_64 -dhcp off

    then, restore your network settings with:

    ./ipmicfg-linux.x86_64 -m $IP_ADDRESS
./ipmicfg-linux.x86_64 -k $NETMASK
./ipmicfg-linux.x86_64 -g $GATEWAY_IP

    I've noticed, that sometimes, you need to reset BMC unit for it to take effect. Just today, was unable to ping my server's IPMI IP address set via ipmicfg utility until after BMC reset:

    ./ipmicfg-linux.x86_64 -r

    You'll have to configure the IP/Netmask/Gateway again with the same tool, but this is the only way I could make it work.

    OpenIPMI and IPMITools did not work for me on Debian Squeeze. I've tried resetting the password, cold resetting BMC, to no avail. However, they are good for setting IP and reading sensor data.

    You can get the appropriate version for your OS from SuperMicro FTP:

    ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/utility/IPMICFG/

    answered Aug 8 '12 at 16:24
    Be sure to write down the network information first. People who do this are likely in a datacenter without a pad of paper. – Stefan Lasiewski Sep 6 '12 at 23:26
  • this definitely works! We couldn't get subsequent commands to work because it reverts to DHCP, so we connected via DHCP and got the IP, then were able to reconfigure. I updated your answer to reflect turning DHCP off first. – Jeff Atwood Oct 22 '12 at 23:52
    • 3

    If you rarely use the IPMI interface it's possible it's still using the default username/password ADMIN/ADMIN (case sensitive).

    answered Jul 14 '11 at 21:07
    i tried with ADMIN/ADMIN but found out that itis admin/admin ie small letters , anyway thans for the hint – user126897 Jul 3 '12 at 2:44
    1

    Hate to dig up "old threads" but this one still comes up first when looking for a solution to the listed problem.

    I've just found that the IPMIView tool from the Supermicro website can change the ADMIN password on the IPMI admin account! :)