RE: [PATCH][resubmit] HP iLO driver

[Altobelli, David]

Martin Knoblauch wrote:
> Somehow I feel the need to step in, as I believe that this
> thread is really going in the wrong direction.
>
> It is true that David (or HP) definitely could have done a
> better job in describing why this driver is needed and what
> HP-Utilities are depending on it. This might have lead some
> people to misinterpret what ILO is about.

I'm sorry about that.  This driver is needed for tools like:
hponcfg, hpdiags, hp-snmp-agents, and iLO flash utilities.

> ILO (Q: does HP still sell RILOE boards and are they
> supporten by the driver?) is a command processor that allows

RILOE cards are not sold any more, and are not supported by this driver.

>
> ILO can be configured either offline (server OS shut down),
> or via the external interfaces, or from a running OS via some
> HP provided utilities. For this a driver is needed, and that
> is what we are talking about. From my experience as an
> administrator of HP Proliant systems the only local uses for
> the *internal* ILO interface is to set-up the thing, and to
> do firmware upgrades.

Yeah, those are most common.  This driver will also surface data
through HPSMH or HPSIM, if the proper packages are installed.

> To obtain sensor data locally there are other ways, which do
> not need the ILO kernel driver (hplog together with hpasmd,
> which unfortunately are closed source). So , unless the
> HP-ILO driver is just a replacement of the old "cpqci"
> driver, there is no need to pester David on functionality.
> If, of course the HP-ILO driver is needed to get to the
> hpasm/hplog functionality (no driver was needed so far) the
> story might be different. But then HP should provide the
> specs for the Proliant sensor interface anyway and work
> together with the lm_sensors project. But that is a different story.

This is a replacement for cpqci, which was released in the
"hprsm" package, and later replaced by the "hp-ilo" package.
The former package was not GPL, the latter is.
I rewrote the driver to make it (hopefully) more palatable,
in terms of both style and functionality.
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