[Linux] IPMItool and outputting System Event Logs

Owned by Joey Houy (Unlicensed)
Last updated: May 04, 2023Version comment


Step-by-step guide

  1. Make sure IPMI and IPMItool is installed
  2. Run the command to output system log/activity


1. Install IPMI and IPMItool via yum using the following command:

For CentOS 7.x
[root@exx]# yum install OpenIPMI OpenIPMI-tools
For Rocky Linux 8
[root@exx]# sudo dnf -y install ipmitool

For Ubuntu 20.04
[root@exx]# sudo apt install ipmitool

2. Make sure that the server is set to start during startup and start the IPMI service.

[root@exx]# chkconfig ipmi on 
[root@exx]# service ipmi start

You can now use these commands to print output of the system activity:

ipmitool sel info 
ipmitool sel elist

## output the .txt file to send to Support if they ask
ipmitool sel elist > ipmilogs.txt

 If you want to clear SEL (not recommended)

You can clear the log using this command if you would like to track an issue starting from your current date:

ipmitool sel clear