References; Sol Architecture; Serial Over Lan (Sol) - Intel NetStructure MPCBL0001 Technical Product Specification

Serial Over Lan (SOL)

Serial over LAN (SOL) is a packet format and protocol defined in the IPMI v2.0 specification for
transmitting serial port data over Ethernet using IPMI over LAN (RMCP+) messages. This two-
way redirection of a blade's serial port data over Ethernet is independent of the operating system or
any applications executing on it. The BIOS also supports redirection of its console over serial port,
which can be redirected over the network for remote access.
The SOL mechanism, coupled with a SOL client utility executing on a remote node, allows
viewing of serial port data from any IPMI v2.0 based, SOL-enabled blade, thus providing a virtual
remote terminal server for accessing the blade's serial port character stream.
Note: 1) This feature is supported on all MPCBL0001N04 boards with TA# C13354-013 (or above) and
MPCBL0001F04 boards with TA# C55360-014 (or above) only.
2) The latest BIOS - Version P13-0028 (or above) and IPMC firmware - Version 1.17 (or above) is
needed to ensure this feature works.
11.1

References

•
Intelligent Platform Management Interface Specification v2.0. dated June 1, 2004
•
AES - Advanced Encryption Standard.
197.pdf
11.2

SOL Architecture

The SOL implementation on the Intel NetStructure
in Section 15 of the IPMI v2.0 specification.
Serial over LAN (SOL) enables suitably designed blades and servers to transparently redirect serial
character stream of a baseboard UART to/from a remote client via LAN over RMCP+ sessions.
This enables users at remote consoles to access the serial port of a blade/server and interact with a
text-based BIOS console, operating system, command line interfaces, and serial text-based
applications.
®
Intel NetStructure MPCBL0001 Technical Product Specification
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/fips/fips197/fips-
®
MPCBL0001 blade is based on the definition
Serial Over Lan (SOL)
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