OpenBMC now available for ADLINK Ampere Altra systems

[bexcran]

I released v1.0 of the OpenBMC port for ADLINK Ampere Altra systems yesterday.
It allows you to run the open source OpenBMC firmware on the AST2500 Baseboard Management Controller instead of the proprietary AMI MegaRAC.

The release along with upgrade instructions can be found at Release v1.0-bexcran · bcran/openbmc · GitHub

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a path to switch from MegaRAC to OpenBMC. So if anyone would like to run OpenBMC instead of the MegaRAC firmware that comes with the systems, please contact me and I can send you replacement SPI-NOR EEPROMs.

[poddingue]

Fantastic work, thank you!

[kenmoini]

This looks awesome, great job, I know this is a lot of hard work - does this OpenBMC distribution also include working Redfish?

If so, how do I go about getting a couple of those EEPROMs?

[dgilmore]

This is excellent. I will have to look and see if I can find some examples of MegaRAC to OpenBMC migration

[bexcran]

Yes, it includes Redfish.

To get the EEPROMs, email me with your address and how you’d like to pay for them (each 128MB chip costs $13, plus postage and packaging). My email address is rebecca@bsdio.com.

[kenmoini]

That’s fantastic - I’ll even pay more for your troubles lol. Sent ya an email, looking forward to checking out your work!

[bexcran]

I’d be very interested to see if there’s a reliable way to switch to OpenBMC without having to physically swap EEPROMs!

[dgilmore]

Not sure the best place to ask so I will do it here. I received my EEPROMs and installed them. However, while I can get into OpenBMC and control the Power and do most things, the system, when booting, locks up in the bios. It gets past the screen where you can press esc to enter the bios settings, but hitting esc does not get you to the settings. Do I need a custom UEFI/BIOS build also?

[bexcran]

Sorry, it appears to be a bug in the 20231129 EDK2 firmware. Unfortunately I missed it since I’ve been running a custom build for a while.

I’ve had reports that the build I created a few weeks ago allows people to get past that point and boot into the OS, though it might be slower than the existing firmware: Release v0.1-bexcran · bcran/edk2_aadp · GitHub

[dgilmore]

Thanks, Rebecca; after updating EDK2, it is working as expected. I appreciate the effort you have put in.

[dgilmore]

@bexcran where is the best place to discuss issues with OpenBMC and EDK2?

[bexcran]

I’ve just enabled Issues and Discussions on GitHub - bcran/edk2_aadp: EDK2 UEFI port to ADLINK Ampere Altra systems and GitHub - bcran/openbmc: Ampere Computing Openbmc.