this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2026
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Thousands of servers can be backdoored by exploiting buggy motherboard controllers (arstechnica.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by return2ozma@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] tal@lemmy.today 3 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

Baseboard management controllers are miniature computers that are embedded into the motherboards of virtually every enterprise server. The microcontrollers, typically abbreviated as BMCs, run with their own operating system firmware, network stack, and IP address. Administrators rely on them to monitor the physical status of large fleets of servers and to perform a variety of tasks, including rebooting machines, installing updates, and even reinstalling operating systems. BMCs provide what’s known as “lights out” and “out-of-band” management because they work even when servers they’re attached to are turned off or are unresponsive.

Hmm. I don't really understand what the major benefit is to having an integrated management system over just providing a BIOS that can expose its interface on a serial port and having a serial device server attached to the thing, which then means that you aren't tied to a particular management system. I'd also kinda think that it'd be cheaper to use a serial device server if you have a ton of servers in a rack that need to be managed, since one serial port server can handle all of them. Use a smart PMU for power control.

Maybe interfaces are more standardized or something, for automated tasks?

[–] notabot@piefed.social 3 points 3 weeks ago

When you're dealing with a large fleet of servers you need a system that you can automate. IPMI is (sort of) standardised, so you can use the same tooling to monitor and manage all of your servers, regardless of model or manufacturer. A serial based interface would put a lot more friction in the way of that, and mean you have to manage and maintain even more devices.

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