ipmctl
ipmctl is a utility for configuring and managing Intel® Optane™ Persistent Memory modules (PMem).
It supports functionality to:
- Discover PMems on the platform.
- Provision the platform memory configuration.
- View and update the firmware on PMems.
- Configure data-at-rest security on PMems.
- Track health and performance of PMems.
- Debug and troubleshoot PMems.
ipmctl refers to the following interface components:
- libipmctl: An Application Programming Interface (API) library for managing PMems.
- ipmctl: A Command Line Interface (CLI) application for configuring and managing PMems from the command line.
Also, metrics exporter for Prometheus based on libipmctl was provided. For more details take a look here
Workarounds
Slow Firmware Updates
When using 02.00.00.x versions of ipmctl software to update or downgrade firmware on Intel® Optane™ PMem 100 Series modules, please use the “-lpmb” CLI option (use DDRT Large Payload transfer). Otherwise the operation may take significantly longer than it normally would.
Commands Fail on Older Platforms
Some platforms that targeted the Gen 100 modules do not generate a ACPI PMTT table which causes ipmctl (version v02.00.00.xxxx) commands to fail. Particularly
- create -goal
- show -topology
- show -memoryresources
- show -dimm
If these commands are ran with -v option they present a message about failing to get the PMTT table.
A corrected version is being developed and will hopefully be available soon. Until that is available the best option is to use ipmctl v01.00.00.xxxx or go through the BIOS menus.
Releases
01.00.00.xxxx (master_1_0 branch) is for Intel Optane Persistent Memory 100 Series
02.00.00.xxxx (master_2_0 branch) is for Intel Optane Persistent Memory 200 Series (and is backwards compatible with 100 series)
03.00.00.xxxx (master_3_0 branch) is the latest version and supports all series of Intel Optane Persistent Memory.
Note: Branches may differ fundamentally. Please pay close attention to README.md of the respective branch.
Packages
Some distributions include ipmctl allowing installation via their package manager. For example (on Fedora):
dnf install ipmctl This will update the required dependencies.
For systems that cannot reach the Internet use another system to download the following rpms required to install ipmctl and then copy them to the original system (e.g. via thumb drive).
ipmctl.rpm, libipmctl.rpm, libsafec.rpm (only needed for 1.x releases), libndctl, json-c.rpm Run
rpm –ivh *.rpm
CentOS and RHEL systems maybe able to use an EPEL package found at: https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/ipmctl
OpenSUSE and SLES packages can be found at: https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/hardware:nvdimm/ipmctl
Ubuntu releases can be found at: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ipmctl
libndctl
ipmctl depends on libndctl (ndctl-libs).
It can be found here https://github.com/pmem/ndctl if not available as a package.
Build
Note: Each branch may require different building procedures. Please follow README.md of the respective branch.
building latest (03.00.00.xxxx) on Linux
- clone the ipmctl and edk2 repositories:
git clone -b master https://github.com/intel/ipmctl.git
git clone https://github.com/tianocore/edk2.git
cd ipmctl
- Run updateedk.sh, this will copy relevant folders from edk2 into ipmctl
./updateedk.sh
- Build the ipmctl rpms specifying the version number to use
./rpmbuild.sh 03.00.00.1234
building latest (03.00.00.xxxx) on Windows
Install Visual Studio 2017 (or newer). Be sure to install optional component:
- Workloads -> Desktop Development with C++
- Individual Components -> Compilers, build tools, and runtimes -> Visual C++ tools for CMake
clone the ipmctl project
Clone the edk2 repository and copy the directories BaseTools, MdeModulePkg, MdePkg and ShellPkg into the clone of the ipmctl project
Open CMakeLists.txt as a CMake project in Visual Studio. See: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build/cmake-projects-in-visual-studio
Specific Instructions Reported as Working for 02.00.00.xxxx versions on SUSE for build in home directory
Replace homedir with the actual account
git clone https://github.com/intel/ipmctl.git
zypper in libndctl-devel ruby2.5-rubygem-asciidoctor
cd ipmctl
mkdir output
cd output
cmake -DRELEASE=ON -DSAFECLIB_SRC_DOWNLOAD_AND_STATIC_LINK=ON -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/home/homedir/ipmctl/ ..
make all
Specific Instructions Reported as Working for 02.00.00.xxxx versions on RHEL7.6, CentOS7.6 and Fedora 30.
Ipmctl has dependency on libsafec-devel (for 1.x builds only), libndctl-devel and rubygem-asciidoctor
- copr/jhli repo has libipmctl and its dependency, libsafec-devel.
- cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
wget https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/jhli/ipmctl/repo/epel-7/jhli-ipmctl-epel-7.repo wget https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/jhli/safeclib/repo/epel-7/jhli-safeclib-epel-7.repo * This should bring down both libipmctl and its dependency, libsafec-devel and
- epel repos has rubygem-asciidoctor
- get the epel repos
yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
- Enable extra packages in RHEL for ndctl-devel or any other dependencies
- EPEL packages may depend on packages from these repositories:
# subscription-manager repos --enable "rhel-*-optional-rpms" --enable "rhel-*-extras-rpms" --enable "rhel-ha-for-rhel-*-server-rpms"
- Install the prerequisite packages
sudo yum install ndctl ndctl-libs ndctl-devel libsafec rubygem-asciidoctor
- Either Follow ipmctl make, rpmbuild instructions, or install the ipmctl package