SuperMicro IPMI is one of the tools we use to remote control our servers. Recently a security bug is discovered which easily grants access to intruders. In this blog I will explain how Yourwebhoster.eu safely uses SuperMicro IPMI
What is IPMI?
IPMI stands for Intelligent Platform Management Interface. In other words it means that IPMI allows us to fully remote control a server. With this device we get the screen you would normally get when you attach a monitor to the server. We also can send keyboard and mouse input, mount a virtual DVD, reboot the server and monitor several server parameters. The big advantage of this is that we do not have to travel to the data center and that we can respond much faster. We only use IPMI in case the server is fully unreachable. Of course there still is 7 days a week an engineer onsite in case we need a hardware swap: this is one of the things which IPMI can not do.
Raise security by hiding IPMI
The recent bug is not the first security bug for IPMI. Since a few years we have connected IPMI to our internal network which only is accessible via a secure VPN connection. This solution disallows access for intruders with the current security bug and keeps your data and service remains safely online.