Files
napalm-redfish/README.md
T
christianmanivong 332e6090a7 feat: read-only IPMI driver; report a missing Redfish license (0.2.0)
A Supermicro X10DRL-i refuses Redfish without a license (SUM, DCMS or
OOB), even the service root. IPMI answers without one.

- New entry point `ipmi` (napalm_redfish.ipmi.IpmiDriver) on
  ManagementControllerDriver, over pyghmi: facts and inventory from the
  FRU (serial number, system UUID), the BMC's LAN interface, sensors
  (temperatures, fans, power supplies), the power state, the event log
  and the BMC firmware. Read-only: no power control, no BMC reset.
  Tested against recordings of the X10 with serials, the UUID, MACs and
  IPs replaced.
- RedfishDriver.open() no longer fails on a license refusal: get_facts
  returns what is known without Redfish, get_device_warnings reports
  bmc_license_required with the licenses the BMC names, every other
  getter raises. netOrk then shows the reason instead of an offline BMC.
- IpmiDriver is not exported from the package: NAPALM's own
  get_network_driver("redfish") takes the first driver class of
  napalm_redfish.
2026-10-13 10:53:51 +02:00

4.7 KiB

napalm-redfish

NAPALM driver for server baseboard management controllers (BMCs) over DMTF Redfish, with a read-only IPMI fallback for boards that predate Redfish. Built on napalm-device-types. Written for netOrk.

Status: early development. Two drivers, both ManagementControllerDrivers from napalm-device-types:

  • redfish (napalm_redfish.RedfishDriver) implements the NAPALM getters and the role methods in docs/redfish-map.md, tested end to end against DMTF mockups. A BMC that refuses Redfish for want of a vendor license (a Supermicro X10 without SUM, DCMS or OOB) still opens: the driver reports bmc_license_required through get_device_warnings instead of failing.
  • ipmi (napalm_redfish.ipmi.IpmiDriver) reads over IPMI 2.0 only: FRU facts and inventory, sensors, power state, event log, BMC firmware. Tested against recordings of a Supermicro X10DRL-i (BMC 3.91), which refuses Redfish without a license.

Why Redfish, and why not one driver per vendor

Redfish is the DMTF's REST API for management controllers. Supermicro (X10 with Redfish firmware, X11 and later), Dell iDRAC, HPE iLO and Lenovo XCC all implement it. One driver with small vendor quirk modules covers all of them; a napalm-supermicro-ipmi would cover one.

IPMI over LAN stays a read-only fallback for boards without Redfish. Its IPMI 2.0 RAKP handshake hands the password hash to anyone who asks (CVE-2013-4786), so netOrk should not depend on it. Finding IPMI over LAN enabled is itself worth reporting, see docs/security.md.

Layout

Entry point Transport Scope
redfish HTTPS, Redfish REST (session token or basic auth) Read, plus power control and BMC reset
ipmi IPMI 2.0 over LAN (UDP 623) via pyghmi Read-only: facts, sensors, power state, SEL

Vendor quirks (Supermicro, Dell, HPE, Lenovo) live in one module per vendor, selected from the service root's Vendor/Oem data and Manager.Model. No separate entry point per vendor.

Documents

Building without hardware

Unlike most drivers in this organisation, much of this one can be built and tested without a device: the DMTF publishes complete mockups of Redfish services (DSP2043), and both the DMTF Redfish-Mockup-Server and OpenStack's sushy-tools serve them over HTTP. Recorded output from the X10DRL-i then covers what the mockups do not: an old Redfish 1.0.x implementation and Supermicro's quirks.

Conventions

These follow the other drivers in the NAPALM organisation:

  • Role bases declare, they never implement. Generic logic goes into napalm-device-types, vendor mechanics stay here.
  • Parsing lives in pure functions, tested on recorded responses under tests/fixtures/<vendor>-<model>-<firmware>/, with a COMMANDS.txt (here: the request paths) listing what produced each file.
  • napalm-device-types is not on PyPI: install it from git+https://git.netork.io/NAPALM/napalm-device-types.git before this package.

Usage

import napalm

driver = napalm.get_network_driver("redfish")
with driver("bmc01.example.net", "netork", "secret",
            optional_args={"verify_ssl": "/etc/netork/bmc-ca.pem"}) as bmc:
    bmc.get_facts()           # the BMC: firmware as os_version, its ports
    bmc.get_power_state()     # the server: {"state": "On", "actions": [...]}
    bmc.get_hardware_inventory()

Optional args: port (443), verify_ssl (True, False or a CA file path; default True), auth (auto, session or basic; auto uses a Redfish session and falls back to basic auth only if the service cannot create sessions), retries (1).

reboot_host restarts the BMC, never the server; the server is switched through set_power_state. get_config is not implemented: a BMC has no configuration file.

Development

python -m venv .venv && . .venv/bin/activate
pip install git+https://git.netork.io/NAPALM/napalm-device-types.git
pip install -e '.[test]'
pytest

Fixtures from the DMTF mockups live under tests/fixtures/dmtf-<mockup>/, unmodified, with the DMTF license and a COMMANDS.txt naming the source commit and request paths.

License

Apache License 2.0, see LICENSE.