Kontron S5500 SEL Troubleshooting - Manual (Page 10)

System Event Log Troubleshooting Guide for Intel ® S5500/S3420 series Server Boards Introduction
Revision 1.0 Intel order number G74211-001 1
1. Introduction
The server management hardware that is part of Intel ® server boards and Intel ® server platforms
serves as a vital part of the overall server management strategy. The server management
hardware provides essential information to the system administrator and provides the
administrator the ability to remotely control the server, even when the operating system is not
running.
The Intel ® server boards and Intel ® server platforms offer comprehensive hardware and
software based solutions. The server management features make the servers simple to manage
and provide alerting on system events. From entry to enterprise systems, good overall server
management is essential to reducing overall total cost of ownership.
This Troubleshooting Guide is intended to help the users better understand the events that are
logged in the Baseboard Management Controllers (BMC) System Event Logs (SEL) on these
Intel
® server boards.
There are separate User’s Guide that covers the general server management and the server
management software offered on Intel ® server boards and Intel ® server platforms.
Server boards currently supported by this document:
 Intel ® S3200/X38ML server boards
 Intel ® S5500/S3420 series server boards.
1.1 Purpose
The purpose of this document is to list all possible events generated by the Intel ® platform. It
may be possible that other sources (not under our control) also generate events, which will not
be described in this document.
1.2 Industry Standard
1.2.1 Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI)
The key characteristic of the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) is that the
inventory, monitoring, logging, and recovery control functions are available independent of the
main processors, BIOS, and operating system. Platform management functions can also be
made available when the system is in a powered down state.
IPMI works by interfacing with the BMC, which extends management capabilities in the server
system and operates independent of the main processor by monitoring the on-board
instrumentation. Through the BMC, IPMI also allows administrators to control power to the
server, and remotely access BIOS configuration and operating system console information.
IPMI defines a common platform instrumentation interface to enable interoperability between: