File Server Recommendation

[Matthew Dillon]

:> Supermicro sells server-class hardware and the other brands mostly small
:> SOHO boxes.
:> Completely different performance and reliability target markets.
:
:It should be noted that we have reports of their IPMI being broken and  
:useless.
:
:[19:55:06] <dillon> unfortunately there's no console for monster ... that  
:supermicro ipmi that monster uses is broken and supermicro never fixed it
:
:Markus Pfeiffer had similar issues on a S/M box.
:
:Sascha

    Supermicro's older IPMI stuff is pretty badly broken, but the newer
    IPMI support (e.g. on the new blade server) appears to work quite well.
    The blade's IPMI works perfectly with ipmitool, including SOL (console)
    access.

    I was finally able to get a console on monster.dragonflybsd.org
    (an older supermicro 48-core opteron box), using the supermicro-
    provided java program.  It's a real mess but it works.  ipmitool
    still works for e.g. power cycling and such but the java program is
    needed for SOL (console) access.

					-Matt
					Matthew Dillon 
					<dillon at backplane.com>