libipmiconsole(3)

💖 libipmiconsole(3) — the IPMI SOL library, explained by your favorite terminal gremlin 💖

okay so bestie, this is the manual page for libipmiconsole, and this whole page lives in section 3 of the man pages (that's the "library functions" section, iykyk). grab a strawberry drink 🍓, we're getting into serial-over-lan.

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✨ NAME ✨

libipmiconsole — the IPMI SOL library. that's it, that's the name. it's giving "short but iconic" 👑

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

the way that you literally just #include it and go:

#include <ipmiconsole.h>

and then all of these are yours to call, no cap:

int ipmiconsole_engine_init(unsigned int thread_count, unsigned int debug_flags);

int ipmiconsole_engine_submit(ipmiconsole_ctx_t c, Ipmiconsole_callback callback, void *callback_arg);

int ipmiconsole_engine_submit_block(ipmiconsole_ctx_t c);

void ipmiconsole_engine_teardown(int cleanup_sol_sessions);

ipmiconsole_ctx_t ipmiconsole_ctx_create(const char *hostname, struct ipmiconsole_ipmi_config *ipmi_config, struct ipmiconsole_protocol_config *protocol_config, struct ipmiconsole_engine_config *engine_config);

int ipmiconsole_ctx_errnum(ipmiconsole_ctx_t c);

char *ipmiconsole_ctx_strerror(int errnum);

ipmiconsole_ctx_status_t ipmiconsole_ctx_status(ipmiconsole_ctx_t c);

int ipmiconsole_ctx_fd(ipmiconsole_ctx_t c);

int ipmiconsole_ctx_generate_break(ipmiconsole_ctx_t c);

void ipmiconsole_ctx_destroy(ipmiconsole_ctx_t c);

copy them exactly, bestie, don't be out here renaming things 🙈

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so Libipmiconsole is a high level serial-over-lan (SOL) API for remote console access. high level = it does the scary stuff so you don't have to 🫶

you can use it to establish and manage multiple IPMI 2.0 SOL sessions at the same time. multiple. like a whole group chat of consoles.

and the goal of this library? genuinely the whole point: it abstracts away all of the underlying IPMI/SOL details from you, the user, into a relatively simple file descriptor interface. that's the main character move here 👑 you get an fd, you read and write, the library handles the lore.

oh and also — alternate default configuration values can be set for libipmiconsole via the libipmiconsole.conf file. see libipmiconsole.conf(5) for more info. slay.

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🎀 FILES 🎀

• /usr/include/ipmiconsole.h
• /etc/freeipmi//libipmiconsole.conf

(yes, that double slash in the second path is exactly how the original prints it — not me being chaotic, that's just verbatim 💅)

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💀 REPORTING BUGS 💀

found a bug? not me gatekeeping — report it to:

• <freeipmi-users@gnu.org>
• <freeipmi-devel@gnu.org>

they're nice, I promise. fr fr.

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💜 COPYRIGHT 💜

• Copyright (C) 2007-2015 Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC.
• Copyright (C) 2006-2007 The Regents of the University of California.

and the legal bit, in full, because we respect licenses in this house:

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

periodt. GPLv3-or-later, bestie. 🧚

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

go read these next, they're literally connected:

• libipmiconsole.conf(5)
• ipmiconsole(8)

and the website, because of course:

http://www.gnu.org/software/freeipmi/

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okay that's the whole page!! 🦋 love that for us. this was libipmiconsole, version 1.6.20, dated 2026-10-05 — go forth and manage your SOL sessions, bestie, you're gonna ate 💅✨🎀