How do I use IPMI to check my server’s hardware?

One of the main benefits of IPMI is that it allows you to check the current health of your server and allows you to check the current status of your server’s hardware.

Once you have logged into the IPMI portal, to navigate to the section regarding the server’s current status, click on Server Health. You will now see on the left hand side that Sensor Readings, Event Log, and Power Consumption appears. You can use the Sensor Readings and Event Log pages to evaluate the current status of the server and to check for historical issues. First, click on Sensor Readings.

You will now be presents with a list of all the components/services monitored by the system, their status and their readings. You will be able to use the information in this table to determine if any of the components currently have any errors. Please note that the server’s sensor reading page may not always be able to detect the status of the drives within the chassis. In my example below, you can see that the HDD Status reading is Not Present and its status is N/A.

Once you have checked the server’s current health, you should also check the event log of the server. It is good practice to check the event log, as errors that have occurred historically but then cleared will not show in the server health section. To do this, click on Event Log.

You will now be presented with a table that lists all the events, picked up by the server’s sensors, since the server was first powered on or since the event log was last cleared. You should be able to use this table to ascertain whether any components/services have recently developed any errors. Please note that if a component/service is not monitored by the server (e.g. as shown in my earlier example, the server’s drive status was not shown), it will most likely also not be shown in the server’s Event Log.

If an error does appear within either the Server Health or within the Event Log, please feel free to raise a support ticket and we will be happy to help. You can also supply us with a screenshot of where the error appears within IPMI, as this may help our team troubleshoot this issue.

If you have any further questions about IPMI or Remote Management, please look through our FAQ section. If our FAQ page does not have the answer, please feel free to raise a support ticket, and we will be happy to help.