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diff --git a/amt-howto.man b/amt-howto.man new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0aa140 --- /dev/null +++ b/amt-howto.man @@ -0,0 +1,130 @@ +.TH amt-howto 7 "(c) 2007 Gerd Hoffmann" +.SH SYNOPSIS +Intel AMT with linux mini howto +.SH DESCRIPTION + +.SS What is AMT and why I should care? +AMT stands for "Active Management Technology". It provides some +remote management facilities. They are handled by the hardware and +firmware, thus they work independant from the operation system. +Means: It works before Linux bootet up to the point where it activated +the network interface. It works even when your most recent test +kernel deadlocked the machine. Which makes it quite useful for +development machines ... +.P +Intel AMT is part of the vPro Platform. Recent intel-chipset based +business machines should have it. My fairly new Intel SDV machine has +it too. + +.SS Documentation +Look here for documentation beyond this mini howto: +.br +http://www.intel.com/technology/platform-technology/intel-amt/engage.htm +.br +Most useful to get started: "Intel AMT Deployment and Reference Guide" + +.SS Very short AMT enabling instructions. +.TP +Enter BIOS Setup. +* Enable AMT +.TP +Enter ME (Management Extention) Setup. Ctrl-P hotkey works for me. +* Login, factory default password is "admin". +.br +* Change password. Trivial ones don't work, must include upper- +and lowercase letters, digits, special characters. +.br +* Enable AMT Managment. +.TP +Reboot, Enter ME Setup again with AMT enabled. +* Configure AMT (hostname, network config, ...) +.br +* Use SMB (Small Business) management mode. The other one +(Enterprise) requires Active Directory Service Infrastructure, +you don't want that, at least not for your first steps ... + +.SS Testing AMT +Take your browser, point it to http://machine:16992/. If you +configured AMT to use DHCP (which is the default) the OS and the +management stack share the same IP address. +.P +You must do that from a remote host as the NIC intercepts network +packets for AMT, thus it doesn't work from the local machine as the +packets never pass the NIC then. If everything is fine you'll see a +greeting page with a button for login. +.P +You can login now, using "admin" as username and the password +configured during setup. You'll see some pages with informations +about the machine. You can also change AMT settings here. + +.SS Control Machine +You might have noticed already while browing the pages: There is a +"Remote Control" page. You can remotely reset and powercycle the +machine there, thus recover the machine after booting a b0rken kernel, +without having someone walk over to the machine and hit the reset +button. + +.SS Serial-over-LAN (SOL) console +AMT also provides a virtual serial port which can be accessed via +network. That gives you a serial console without a serial cable to +another machine. +.P +If you have activated AMT and SOL the linux kernel should see an +additional serial port, like this on my machine: +.P +.nf + [root@xeni ~]# dmesg | grep ttyS2 + 0000:00:03.3: ttyS2 at I/O 0xe000 (irq = 169) is a 16550A +.fi +.P +Edit initab, add a line like this: +.P +.nf + S2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty ttyS2 115200 vt100-nav +.fi +.P +You should add the serial port to /etc/securetty too so you are able +to login as root. Reload inittab ("init q"). Use amtterm to connect. +Tap enter. You should see a login prompt now and be able to login. +.P +You can also use that device as console for the linux kernel, using +the usual "console=ttyS2,115200" kernel command line argument, so you +see the boot messages (and kernel Oopses, if any). +.P +You can tell grub to use that serial device, so you can pick a working +kernel for the next boot. Usual commands from the grub manual, except +that you need "--port=0xe000" instead of "--unit=0" due to the +non-standard I/O port for the serial line (my machine, yours might use +another port, check linux kernel boot messages). +.P +The magic command for the Xen kernel is "com1=115200,8n1,0xe000,0" +(again, you might have to replace the I/O port). The final '0' +disables the IRQ, otherwise the Xen kernel hangs at boot after +enabling interrupts. + +.SS Fun with Xen and AMT +The AMT network stack seems to become slightly confused when running +on a Xen host in DHCP mode. Everything works fine as long as only +Dom0 runs. But if one starts a guest OS (with bridged networking) AMT +suddenly changes the IP address to the one the guest aquired via DHCP. +.P +It is probably a good idea to assign a separate static IP address to +AMT then. I didn't manage to switch my machine from DHCP to static IP +yet though, the BIOS refuses to accept the settings. The error +message doesn't indicate why. + +.SS More fun with AMT +You might want to download the DTK (Developer Toolkit, source code is +available too) and play with it. The .exe is a self-extracting rar +archive and can be unpacked on linux using the unrar utility. The +Switchbox comes with a linux binary (additionally to the Windows +stuff). The GUI tools are written in C#. Trying to make them fly +with mono didn't work for me though (mono version 1.2.3 as shipped +with Fedora 7). + +.SH SEE ALSO +amtterm(1), gamt(1) +.P +http://www.intel.com/technology/platform-technology/intel-amt/ +.SH WRITTEN BY +Gerd Hoffmann <kraxel@redhat.com> |