[Beowulf] Re: Any industry-standards that allow automated BIOS modifications and dumping? IPMI cannot do it, can it?

[Mark Hahn]

> #####load the required drivers
> modprobe ipmi_devintf
> modprobe ipmi_si
> modprobe ipmi_msghandler

IMO, you shouldn't: when permanently active, the local ipmi 
interface seems to consume noticable cycles (kipmi thread). 
just modprobe when you need it and rmmod after...

> (2)Can't mod the BIOS settings or even dump them. Is there a way to
> modify the BIOS settings via. IPMI (in general)

definitely not in general.  a vendor could certainly provide IPMI
extensions that manipulate bios settings.  but the market doesn't 
seem to find this kind of HPC-mostly concern worthwhile :(

donno, maybe the really big players (google, etc) get satisfaction.
I wonder though, whether it would kill vendors just to publish 
the source for their bios.

bios-serial-redirection and serial-over-lan can let you do it manually.