Edit: Not sure this would work these days.
Originally posted April 14, 2009 on AIXchange
Sometime back, I wrote a blog entry about using the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI) to access POWER5 processor-based machines for customers that don’t have an HMC.
In the era of POWER6 processors, ASMI remains an option for smaller shops with one or two computers and no compelling reason to have an HMC in their environment. For instance, one of my customers recently wanted to connect a dumb terminal to a model 8203-E4A.
For this environment, that’s a completely workable solution. The admins are only a short drive away from the computer room, so if things ever get so bad that someone requires console access, they’re willing to come in to do the work as opposed to trying to log in over the network.
The customer had a very old dumb terminal that it wanted to reuse with this machine. How old was it? It was so old that nobody could remember how to change the settings. They couldn’t even find anything on Google. That’s one old dumb terminal.
However, with your Windows laptop, a serial connection and Hyperterm, you can easily access the vty0 serial device and use it as the console. Set your connection speed to 19200–although if you’re plugging into a green-screen terminal and you can’t remember how to change the settings, you should slow down the server’s serial port speed rather than try to speed up the terminal.
That’s where ASMI comes in. If you go in through AIX and smitty, you can’t change the speed on the vty device. Only ASMI gives you this option.
According to the Redpaper, “IBM Power Systems 520 Technical Overview“:
“Service processor Eth0 or HMC1 port is configured as 169.254.2.147 with netmask 255.255.255.0”
In my case, when I changed the IP address on my laptop, I went with another address on the 169.254.2.x network, plugged the network cable between my Ethernet port and the server’s HMC1 port, and was able to access ASMI at https://169.254.2.147. I logged in with the admin ID and changed my serial port speed to 9600. Then I went into smitty and changed the TERM type to something that the dumb terminal recognized. All was well.
Would an HMC or a newer dumb terminal onsite make it easier to gain console access? Certainly. However, I strongly believe that customers know what’s best for them. I’ll lay out the pros and cons, but ultimately the customer decides how to run the business. This console will only be used infrequently, if ever. Reusing still-working equipment made perfect sense here.