IPMI items when the Sensor ID Strings are used more than once by an IPMI target.

[Jackson323]

I have some Dell IDRACs I'd like to monitor over IPMI.

I can do this JUST fine with custom templates and custom items.

I run into a problem though, when a Dell IDRAC IPMI server uses the same Sensor ID String for more than one sensor.

Like this Temperature example for a Dell R610 that has only 1 temp censor and some un-used ones with the same ID String.

4 | Ambient Temp | Temperature | N/A | C | N/A
6 | Ambient Temp | Temperature | N/A | C | N/A
7 | Ambient Temp | Temperature | 25.00 | C | 'OK'​

In this case, with IPMItool, if I index "Ambient Temp" I only get the first sensor.

I can't IPMItool ... "sdr get" 4, 6, or 7.

Zabbix doesn't understand 7. It only understands "Ambient Temp," and it happily collects the wrong one.

Another example, a Dell R630 with 2 cpu temp censors :

24 | Temp | Temperature | 62.00 | C | 'OK'
25 | Temp | Temperature | 64.00 | C | 'OK'​

.... How could I "item" that second one? Zabbix will happily collect the first CPU temp, but not the second.

It seems like Dell does a good job of naming fans and power supplies uniquely. But not temp sensors.

So how can I index them in Zabbix?

[PeterZielony]

I don't he much experience with impi - I guess values comes one by one? Or it is returns all at the same time?

either way you could have item preprocessing (javascript) to make all item as a JSON format ( this is the best approach). Once you have that you could build a low level discovery as dependent time to create more items prototypes (dependent again based on 1st value ) which then uses another preprocessing to get values based on JSON path

i hope that makes sense?

somethis like this for initial preprocessing:

const inputString = value;
const [sensorID, sensorsSection, sensorName, sensorValue, sensorUnit, sensorStatus] = inputString.split(' | ');

const resultJSON =
[
{
"{#SENSORID}": sensorID.trim(),
"{#SENSORSSECTION}": sensorsSection.trim(),
"{#SENSORNAME}": sensorName.trim(),
"{#SENSORVALUE}": sensorValue.trim(),
"{#SENSORUNIT}": sensorUnit.trim(),
"{#SENSORSTATUS}":sensorStatus.trim()
}
];

return resultJSON;

(just idea - not tested)

[Jackson323]

I probably don't know enough about Zabbix to make a whole lot of sense of this code.

I was expecting something like :

Key: ipmi.sensor.Fan2A
IPMI Sensor: Fan2A

But for cases where they just named 6 different fans "Fan"

These pre-processing steps though make me wonder. Not about doing it in the item, but something in discovery?

If I do an ipmi.get, zabbix builds a big JSON object based on what IPMI told it, maybe that's where I can find the extra sensors.

[PeterZielony]

You can read about preprocessing and low level discovery here:

https://www.zabbix.com/documentation/current/en/manual/discovery/low_level_discovery

additional preprocessing for items:

https://www.zabbix.com/documentation/current/en/manual/config/items/preprocessing