IPMI (Go collector)

Plugin: ipmi.plugin Module: ipmi

Overview

Monitor hardware sensor readings, sensor health and System Event Log entries through IPMI.

Queries a local Linux OpenIPMI device or a remote BMC over IPMI 1.5 LAN or IPMI 2.0 LAN+ using the configured account. The collector reads sensors and SEL metadata; it does not change BMC configuration or clear the event log.

This collector is only supported on the following platforms:

• Linux

This collector supports collecting metrics from multiple instances of this integration.

Permission	Needed when
Read/write access to the selected OpenIPMI device	Collecting locally with driver: open.
BMC account with User privilege and LAN access	Collecting remotely with driver: lan or driver: lanplus. Some BMC policies require a higher session privilege.

Installers give the dedicated ipmi.plugin binary root ownership and setuid permission, restricted to the Netdata group, for local device access. Containers must expose the device, for example with --device /dev/ipmi0. Remote collection needs no local device access.

Default Behavior

Auto-Detection

On standard Linux installations, the stock job attempts to collect the local OpenIPMI device 0 every ten seconds. Containers require ipmi=yes in the plugins section of netdata.conf and an exposed device for local collection. Hosts without an accessible device do not collect local IPMI metrics. Netdata prefers this plugin when both IPMI implementations are installed and enabled. An existing freeipmi=no keeps collection disabled; non-blank legacy command options keep C when FreeIPMI is enabled. Set ipmi=yes explicitly in the plugins section of netdata.conf to migrate either case to Go.

Limits

This plugin requires Linux. Keep FreeIPMI for legacy direct drivers, bridged sensors, OEM interpretation or custom FreeIPMI interpretation files. Unknown or unavailable sensor readings leave gaps. Default FreeIPMI policy treats non-critical threshold assertions as nominal. Netdata starts only one IPMI implementation; switch implementations by changing netdata.conf and restarting the Agent.

Performance Impact

IPMI command latency grows with sensor count. Increase update_every when a complete sensor scan takes longer than the configured interval.

Setup

Prerequisites

Install the IPMI plugin

Linux source and static builds include the Go IPMI plugin by default. For DEB/RPM installations, install the optional netdata-plugin-ipmi package separately. Source builds can disable it with --disable-plugin-ipmi.

Migrate an existing FreeIPMI configuration

Configure the target in ipmi/ipmi.conf, set ipmi = yes in the [plugins] section of netdata.conf, and restart Netdata. C command options are not translated. To switch back, install netdata-plugin-freeipmi if needed, set ipmi = no and freeipmi = yes, and restart Netdata.

Enable remote BMC access

For LAN/LAN+, enable IPMI over LAN on the BMC, configure an account with User privilege, and allow UDP traffic from the Agent to the BMC port (623 by default). Select a higher privilege only if the BMC access policy requires it.

Configuration

Options

Options apply to each IPMI job. Configure one local device or remote BMC per job.

Group	Option	Description	Default	Required
Connection	driver	IPMI transport: local Linux OpenIPMI, IPMI 1.5 LAN or IPMI 2.0 LAN+.	open	no
	device	Local OpenIPMI device number.	0	no
	hostname	BMC hostname or IP address for LAN/LAN+, without a URL scheme or port.		yes
	port	BMC UDP port for LAN/LAN+.	623	no
	username	BMC account for LAN/LAN+. Leave empty only for anonymous access.		no
	password	BMC account password for LAN/LAN+. Leave empty only if the account has no password.		no
	privilege_level	Session privilege requested from the BMC. User privilege is sufficient for standard sensor and SEL commands.	user	no
Collection	update_every	Data collection frequency in seconds.	10	no
	timeout	Timeout for session setup and for each IPMI command.	5s	no
	collect_sel	Collect the System Event Log entry count.	yes	no
Virtual Node	vnode	Associates this job with a Virtual Node.		no

via File

The configuration file name for this integration is ipmi/ipmi.conf.

You can edit the configuration file using the edit-config script from the Netdata config directory.

cd /etc/netdata 2>/dev/null || cd /opt/netdata/etc/netdata
sudo ./edit-config ipmi/ipmi.conf

Examples

Local device

Monitor the first kernel IPMI device.

jobs:
  - name: local
    driver: open

Remote BMC

Monitor a remote BMC using IPMI 2.0. Use driver lan for BMCs that require IPMI 1.5.

jobs:
  - name: server-bmc
    driver: lanplus
    hostname: bmc.example
    username: monitor
    password: '${env:IPMI_PASSWORD}'

Attach a remote BMC to a virtual node

Define server-node in vnodes.conf first. Without vnode, metrics belong to the Agent host.

jobs:
  - name: server-bmc
    driver: lanplus
    hostname: bmc.example
    username: monitor
    password: '${env:IPMI_PASSWORD}'
    vnode: server-node

Alerts

The following alerts are available:

Alert name	On metric	Description
Alert name ipmi_sensor_state	On metricipmi.sensor_state	DescriptionIPMI sensor ${label:sensor} (${label:component}) state
Alert name ipmi_events	On metricipmi.sel	Descriptionnumber of events in the IPMI System Event Log (SEL)

Metrics

Metrics grouped by scope.

The scope defines the instance that the metric belongs to. An instance is uniquely identified by a set of labels.

Each sensor has its own reading and state chart. SEL is the raw repository entry count, including records FreeIPMI may filter during interpretation. The stock ipmi_events alert template matches the ipmi.sel context and applies to every Go job and to the C collector.

Per sensor

A sensor on the selected BMC.

Labels:

Label	Description
sensor	Sensor name.
type	IPMI sensor type.
component	Component inferred from the sensor name and type.

Metrics:

Metric	Description	Dimensions	Unit
ipmi.sensor_temperature_c	IPMI Sensor Temperature	temperature	Celsius
ipmi.sensor_temperature_f	IPMI Sensor Temperature	temperature	Fahrenheit
ipmi.sensor_voltage	IPMI Sensor Voltage	voltage	Volts
ipmi.sensor_ampere	IPMI Sensor Current	ampere	Amps
ipmi.sensor_fan_speed	IPMI Sensor Fan Speed	rotations	RPM
ipmi.sensor_power	IPMI Sensor Power	power	Watts
ipmi.sensor_reading_percent	IPMI Sensor Percentage Reading	percentage	%
ipmi.sensor_state	IPMI Sensor State	nominal, warning, critical, unknown	state

Per IPMI (Go collector) instance

The selected BMC System Event Log.

This scope has no labels.

Metrics:

Metric	Description	Dimensions	Unit
ipmi.sel	IPMI System Event Log Entries	events	events

Live Data

Inspect the latest successful collection without issuing more IPMI commands.

IPMI Sensors

Show current readings and default FreeIPMI health states, with sensor counts by component and state.

Aspect	Description
Name	Ipmi-sensors
Require Cloud	no
Performance	Reads the latest completed snapshot without additional BMC requests.
Security	Read-only sensor data from the configured target.
Availability	Available while a collection job runs. Returns HTTP 503 before the first successful collection or after a collection failure.

Prerequisites

No additional configuration is required.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Required	Default	Options
Instance	select	Select the IPMI collection job.	no	First available job

Returns

One row per discovered full or compact sensor record, expanded for sharing. Unavailable numeric readings are null.

Column	Type	Unit	Visibility	Description
Sensor	string			Sensor name.
Type	string			IPMI sensor type.
Component	string			Component inferred from the sensor name and type.
Reading	float			Current reading; null when unavailable.
Units	string			Reading units; null for discrete sensors.
State	string			Default FreeIPMI health interpretation.
Key	string		hidden	Stable sensor identity within the collection job.
rowOptions	none		hidden	Row health severity.

Troubleshooting

Known Errors

permission denied

Cause

The plugin account cannot open the local IPMI device for reading and writing.

Fix

Check that the dedicated binary retains the ownership and setuid permissions installed by Netdata. In a container, expose the IPMI device. For a manually built binary, grant device access through the host security policy or run a trusted local test explicitly with sudo.