This document is intended for IT administrators using the Intel ASF solution. It provides instructions to install, deploy, configure and troubleshoot the Intel ASF solution within their network.

Introduction


Overview

The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) has released the Alert Standard Format (ASF) 2.0 specification, which defines alerting and remote-control interfaces. This enables management of networked computers when their operating system is absent. Intel's ASF Alerting software, when combined with an ASF enabled system, gives an IT manager the ability to remotely monitor and manage networked computers, independent of the operating system.

There are two primary components to the Intel ASF solution:

ASF provides remote alerting of key environmental events that are detected by sensors, such as temperature, electrical, fan, and chassis-intrusion sensors. It also incorporates additional alerting in the operating-system-absent environment such as invalid password, system heartbeats, and failure-to-boot indications.

When a monitored event occurs, a Platform Event Trap (PET) is sent to the management console. These PET packets are recognized by  management consoles such as LANDesk* Configuration Manager, Computer Associates (CA) Unicenter and Hewlett-Packard (HP) OpenView. Many of these management consoles provide remote control functionality such that the administrator can take corrective actions to address the alerts. For additional information on the ASF specification, please review the DMTF ASF specification available at www.dmtf.org


Intel ASF Agent System Requirements

Intel's ASF solution requires a computer that supports ASF, including an ASF enabled BIOS, ASF sensors to monitor the system health, along with a LAN on Motherboard (LOM) or Network Interface Controller (NIC) that supports ASF.

Table 1. Required Software

Software Description
Intel® ASF-enabled Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) Network Adapter Driver Version 8.0 or higher installed.
Microsoft* Windows* Management Instrumentation (WMI) Provider Core Version 1.5 or higher is included with Microsoft Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000. For Windows NT* 4.0 and Windows 98 Second Edition (SE), WMI software is available for download from www.microsoft.com
Intel Pro Alerting Agent Installed as part of the Intel ASF Agent installation process.

ASF Capabilities

Alerting

ASF provides system health information and generates error notifications in low-power and operating-system-absent states, as well as during normal operation. Table 2 describes the superset of PETs that may be available. For information on which alerts a specific ASF-enabled platform supports, consult the computer's User's Guide.

Table 2. Supported ASF Platform Event Traps**

Alert Description
Chassis: Chassis Intrusion - Physical Security Violation  System chassis has been opened.
Chassis Intrusion - Physical Security Violation Event Cleared System chassis intrusion alert has been cleared.
BIOS: Corrupt BIOS The system BIOS is corrupted.
Corrupt BIOS Cleared The system BIOS corruption has been resolved.
Boot: Failure to Boot to BIOS The system BIOS did not complete loading upon initiation.
CPU: CPU DOA Alert The CPU is not functioning properly.
CPU DOA Alert Cleared The CPU is now running properly.
Heartbeats: Entity Presence Periodic heartbeats transmitted to verify system presence.
Temperature: Generic Critical Temperature Problem  System temperature is out of limits. 
Generic Critical Temperature Problem Cleared The system temperature problem has been cleared.
Voltage: Generic Critical Voltage Problem  The voltage from onboard voltage regulators is out of limits. 
Generic Critical Voltage Problem Cleared The voltage problem has been cleared.
Power Supply: Critical Power Supply Problem  System power supply voltage is out of limits. 
Critical Power Supply Problem Cleared System power supply voltage problem has been resolved.
Cooling Device: Generic Critical Fan Failure  Fan speed/rpm is out of limits. 
Generic Critical Fan Failure Cleared Fan speed/rpm problem has been resolved.
Connectivity: Ethernet Connectivity Enabled  Ethernet connectivity is enabled. 
Ethernet Connectivity Disabled Connectivity is disabled.

** Not all PET events are supported by all computers.

Remote Control

Remote control capability is defined in both the DMTF ASF V1.0 and ASF V2.0 specification. ASF V2.0 added security to the Remote Monitoring & Control Protocol (RMCP) to authenticate the communication between the management console and ASF enabled clients.

An ASF-enabled management console has the ability to query the client systems and take corrective action for the alerts presented in Table 2. An ASF-enabled management console can determine an ASF client's capabilities as well as state information. Furthermore the IT administrator can remotely power up, power down, reboot with various boot options via the management console. With ASF 2.0 enabled clients, corrective actions are authenticated. This ensures that the Management console is the only authenticated system that may perform corrective actions which an ASF enabled client will response to.

The IT administrator has the ability to disable the remote control functionality.

Table 3. Remote-Control Features

Control Capability Description
Get System State Returns the current system status.
Get Client Capabilities Returns client ASF configuration per the DMTF ASF specification.
Presence Ping Similar to Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) ping utility; responds with pong to verify the system presence.
Power up Powers up the remote system.
Power down Powers down the remote system.
Reboot Reboots the remote system.
Reboot with various boot options Reboots the remote system with options such as booting from  PXE server.

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Last modified on 11/05/02 1:32p Revision 1