v0.12.0 remote access is broken with both FreeIPMI and ipmitool

[tyuxar]

Hi,

I've had a Ruby script I wrote to learn the language and automate remote backups. It uses rubyipmi to turn on a remote server. It's been working well for months with v0.11.1, but today, after upgrading to v0.12.0 (FreeBSD pkg upgrade) it stopped working. I've been using ipmitool, but switching to freeipmi gives the same result.

I also tried both versions of the gem on a Devuan Daedalus VM, too, and ended up the same way. I used gem install --user-install ... this time, so this rules out possible interference from the FreeBSD packager.

Unfortunately I am not a well-versed Ruby developer (I'm learning the language), and could not fully debug it (yet).

What infos can I share with you to help debugging?

[tyuxar]

One note, but it may be a red herring, I guess I've found one of the bugs.

When looking for the desired IPMI management stack, an extra newline gets appended to the end of the command. When I try to connect from irb using the same credentials, here's what I get, after a

ipmiconn = Rubyipmi.connect('sproot', '%%redacted%%', 'service-processor', 'ipmitool')

irb(main):009> ipmiconn.sensors
=>
#<Rubyipmi::Ipmitool::Sensors:0x000008a322a10720
 @cmd="/usr/local/bin/ipmitool\n",
 @cmdname="ipmitool",
 @lastcall="/usr/local/bin/ipmitool\n -H service-processor -U sproot -I lanplus -f /tmp/20250724-56374-xbfcsz sensor",
 @options={"H"=>"service-processor", "U"=>"sproot", "P"=>"%%redacted%%", "I"=>"lanplus", "f"=>"/tmp/20250724-56374-96obsk"},
 @passfile=#<File:/tmp/20250724-56374-xbfcsz (closed)>,
 @result="",
 @result_err="Could not open device at /dev/ipmi0 or /dev/ipmi/0 or /dev/ipmidev/0: No such file or directory\nsh: -H: not found\n",
 @success=true>
irb(main):010>

Because of the extra newline after the command, the shell interprets -H as another command, I guess.

--- rubyipmi.rb.orig    2025-07-04 03:30:20.000000000 +0200
+++ rubyipmi.rb 2025-07-24 16:46:20.010367000 +0200
@@ -156,7 +156,7 @@
     logger&.error("Which command returned: #{stderr}") unless status.success?

     return nil unless status.success?
-    stdout
+    stdout.chomp
   end

   # Return true or false if the provider is available

Alas it still does not work, so it may be a red herring - or there is another problem as well.

[dseira]

0.12 version breaks the ipmitool/freeipmi. I found a couple of workarounds:

• Downgrade to 0.11.1

• Replace the following run function in rubyipmi/commands/basecommand.rb:

def run
  # we search for the command everytime just in case its removed during execution
  # we also don't want to add this to the initialize since mocking is difficult and we don't want to
  # throw errors upon object creation
  retrycount = 0
  process_status = false
  @cmd = locate_command(@cmdname)
  setpass
  @result = nil
  logger.debug(makecommand) if logger
  begin
    command = makecommand

    # Normalize to clean argv (handles stray newlines/whitespace)
    require "shellwords"
    argv = command.is_a?(Array) ? command : Shellwords.split(command.to_s)

    @lastcall = argv.join(" ")

    stdout, stderr, status = Open3.capture3(*argv)
    @result_err = stderr
    @result     = "#{stdout}#{stderr}"

    ok = status.is_a?(Process::Status) ? status.success? : !!status
    raise "Error occurred" unless ok
    process_status = true
  rescue
    if retrycount < max_retry_count
      find_fix(@result)
      retrycount = retrycount.next
      retry
    else
      logger.error("Exhausted all auto fixes, cannot determine what the problem is") if logger
      raise "Exhausted all auto fixes, cannot determine what the problem is"
    end
  ensure
    removepass
    process_status
  end
end

[masamokkulu]

In Foreman v3.16, the BMC proxy was not working, and I came across this information.
It works correctly following the steps outlined here. Thank you!

$ apt-get remove ruby-rubyipmi
$ gem install rubyipmi -v 0.11.0