Using LAN over USB to interface the IMM

The IMM does not require IPMI device drivers or USB daemons for in-band IMM communication. Instead, a LAN over USB interface enables in-band communications to the IMM; the IMM hardware on the system board presents an internal Ethernet NIC from the IMM to the operating system. LAN over USB is also called the "USB in-band interface" in the IMM web interface.

Typically, the IMM IP address for the LAN over USB interface is set to a static address of 169.254.95.118 with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0. In the event of an IP address collision on the network, the IMM might obtain a different IP address in the 169.254.xxx.xxx range.

Because the IMM might obtain a random IP address for the LAN over USB interface, the IBM Advanced Settings Utility (ASU) and firmware flash utilities, DSA, and the IBM Director Agent use the Service Location Protocol (SLP) to discover the IMM IP address. These tools perform an SLP multicast discovery on the LAN over USB interface. When they receive a response from the IMM, they obtain the attributes that contain the IP address the IMM is using for the LAN over USB interface.