Server Base Manageability Requirements

Server Base Manageability Requirements (SBMR) provides a path to establish a common foundation for server management on SBSA-compliant Arm AArch64 servers where common capabilities are standardized and differentiation truly valuable to the end-users is built on top. Redfish, PLDM, and MCTP specifications have been chosen to ease the adoption of Arm, by aligning the AArch64 server ecosystem to where the existing enterprise server market is moving to.

For details, refer to Arm Server Base Manageability Requirements

SBMR-Architecture Compliance Suite

SBMR Architecture Compliance Suite (ACS) checks for compliance against the Arm Server Base Manageability Requirements specification. The tests uses Robot automation framework and targets IPMI, Redfish, Host Interface and Redfish HI interfaces. The multitude of tests are adapted from openbmc-test-automation.

Release details

• Code Quality: ALPHA
• Latest tag version: v26.06_SBMR_3.0.0
• Specification coverage: SBMR 3.0 ALP2
• The tests are written for version 3.0 ALP2 of the SBMR specification, covering out-of-band, in-band interfaces and guidance for manually testing side-band interfaces.
• For the detailed testcase checklist, see SBMR Testcase Checklist.
• The compliance suite is not a substitute for design verification.
• To review the SBMR ACS logs, Arm licensees can contact Arm directly through their partner managers.

Test coverage and self-declarations

SBMR-ACS provides automated test coverage for in-band and out-of-band requirements, including supported side-band checks executed through the out-of-band suite. The available automated and manual test methods are described in Execution modes.

Some SBMR requirements are not currently covered by automated or manual tests. Partners must independently verify compliance with these requirements and set the corresponding self-declaration variables to 1 in the config file. Variables must remain set to 0 for requirements that have not been verified or are not supported.

SBMR-ACS combines automated test results with partner-provided self-declarations to generate a complete compliance report for the applicable SBMR rules.

Execution modes

SBMR-ACS can be executed in the following modes:

Mode	Test type	Execution method	Description	Remarks
Mode 1	Out-of-Band and Side-Band	Automated	Run SBMR-ACS on an external Linux host. Both x86 and AArch64 hosts are supported. Automated MCTP and PLDM side-band tests are included in the OOB suite through mctp/test_mctp_interface.robot and mctp/test_pldm_interface.robot.	Ubuntu users can install the prerequisites using the provided script; users of other Linux distributions must install them manually. For side-band automation, configure the BMC SSH connection and MCTP_SB_INTERFACES. If side-band automation fails, follow the Side-band manual testing guide.
Mode 2	In-Band—direct	Automated	Download and run the in-band tests directly on an AArch64 Linux distribution installed on the system under test.	Install the prerequisites listed in this README. Ubuntu users can use the provided installation script; users of other Linux distributions must install them manually.
	In-Band—SystemReady image	Automated	Run the copy of SBMR-ACS built into the SystemReady-band ACS image through automation on ACS Linux.	Pre-built images containing SBMR-ACS are available from the SystemReady-band pre-built images directory. Select SystemReady band ACS (Automation) from the GRUB menu to run ACS automation. To run only the SBMR in-band tests, follow the SystemReady-band execution environment and configuration user guide and update acs_run_config.ini.

Steps for Installation of Pre-requisites

• Clone the SBMR-ACS GitHub repository

  git clone https://github.com/ARM-software/sbmr-acs.git
  cd sbmr-acs
  

Automatic Installation of Pre-requisites

• You can automatically install ubuntu utility & python package by executing below script (ubuntu 20.04) or later.

  $ ./install_package.sh
  

  In-band interface testing needs sudo privileges for ipmitool and dmidecode. Please switch to root role and install packages as below steps. Also, switching to root role to execute sbmr-acs in-band testing.

  $ sudo su
  $ ./install_package.sh
  

  Note: After install_package.sh completes, check whether the robot command is available:

  $ robot --version
  

  If the command is not found, create a soft link in /usr/bin:

  $ sudo ln -s ~/.local/bin/robot /usr/bin/robot
  

Manual Installation of Pre-requisites

ONLY follow the manual installation steps if ./install_package.sh fails to complete and reports an error while installing any component.

• Manually install ubuntu utility & python packages by following below steps.

  • Robot Framework Install Instructions

  • Miscellaneous Packages required to be installed for Automation. Install the packages and it's dependencies via pip

    If using Python 3.x, use the corresponding pip3 to install packages. Note: Older Python 2.x is not actively supported.

    REST base packages:

    $ pip install -U requests
    $ pip install -U robotframework-requests
    $ pip install -U robotframework-httplibrary
    

    Python redfish library packages: For more detailed instructions see python-redfish-library

    $ pip install redfish
    

    SSH and SCP base packages: For more detailed installation instructions see robotframework-sshlibrary

    $ pip install robotframework-sshlibrary
    $ pip install robotframework-scplibrary
    

    Installing requirement dependencies:

    $ pip install -r requirements.txt
    

    Installing expect (Ubuntu example):

    $ sudo apt-get install expect
    

    Installing ipmitool (Ubuntu example):

    $ sudo apt-get install ipmitool
    

  • For in-band interface testing, following additional installations are required.

    • redfish-finder to setup Redfish Host Interface networking configure

      $ git clone https://github.com/nhorman/redfish-finder
      $ sudo cp redfish-finder/redfish-finder /usr/bin/
      

    • Latest dmidecode to support DSP0270 v1.3.0 USB/PCIe v2 device type

      $ git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/dmidecode.git/
      $ cd dmidecode
      $ make & make install
      

      If you don't need USB/PCIe v2 device type, then install package directly from apt-get (Ubuntu example)

      $ sudo apt-get install dmidecode
      

    • nmcli utility to build networkmanager configurations (Ubuntu example).

      $ sudo apt-get install network-manager
      

Running SBMR-ACS tests

Note: For in-band testing, the configuration step below is not required. Go directly to Running SBMR-ACS in-band (IB) tests.

Configure SBMR-ACS Out-of-Band (OOB) tests:

Download the sbmr-acs repository and install pre-requisites as mentioned in steps-for-installation-of-pre-requisites section. Before running the test suite, set up the configuration values in the config file as discussed below. This is required for OOB testing.

• BMC Information
• Host Information
• MCTP Interface Role Mapping
• SOL Information
• Virtual Media Information
• Self-Declaration Information

For BMC configuration, BMC_HOST, BMC_USERNAME, and BMC_PASSWORD must be set. For OOB runs started with run-sbmr-acs.sh, Redfish instance IDs are auto-discovered by default. If needed, uncomment BMC_ID, SYSTEM_ID, or CHASSIS_ID in config to override auto-discovery. CHASSIS_ID should refer to the main chassis that is in charge of power status.

For Host configuration, Host OS SOL_LOGIN_OUTPUT, SOL_LOGIN_USERNAME, and SOL_LOGIN_PASSWORD must be set. SOL_LOGIN_OUTPUT is the login prompt that appears when the host boots, and it helps the suite detect that the host has booted before providing credentials. Ensure that the Host OS is set as the first entry in the boot order of the system under test (SUT) for IPMI SOL test to work.

For MCTP and PLDM-over-MCTP testing, configure the Linux MCTP interfaces that connect the BMC to the server SoC and IO devices. Set MCTP_SB_INTERFACES for SIDE-BAND connections and MCTP_IO_INTERFACES for BMC-IO connections. Use the exact interface names reported by mctp link, separate multiple interfaces with commas, and do not assign an interface to both roles. For example:

-v MCTP_SB_INTERFACES:mctpi3c6
-v MCTP_IO_INTERFACES:mctpi2c1,mctpi3c1

For Serial over LAN (SOL) configuration, SBMR-ACS will verify SOL capability and SOL methods can be IPMI SOL and SSH-based SOL. The default method is IPMI SOL, so no SOL configuration change is required by default. To use SSH-based SOL, set SOL_TYPE to ssh and set SOL_SSH_PORT if a non-default SSH port is required. If extra commands are needed to start SOL over SSH, set SOL_SSH_CMD.

For Virtual Media configuration, update VM_URL to point to the OS image used for Virtual Media testing. If authentication or transfer settings are required, update the optional Virtual Media variables in config.

For self-declaration information, SBMR-ACS has a limitation in verifying some SBMR-defined interfaces. Vendors must declare whether the system supports the corresponding SBMR-compliant interfaces by setting each applicable self-declaration variable to 1. Leave the variable set to 0 if the interface is not supported.

Running SBMR-ACS Out-of-Band (OOB) tests:

After following Configure SBMR-ACS Out-of-Band (OOB) tests and steps-for-installation-of-pre-requisites on an external host machine. Run run-sbmr-acs.sh with "oob" argument. If no SBMR level is passed, the suite defaults to SBMR 3.0 baseline requirements (M4).

Note: If testing SBMR compliance for Arm SystemReady Requirements, see Guidance on SBMR Compliance for Arm SystemReady Requirements.

./run-sbmr-acs.sh oob

The logs for the OOB tests will be stored in the 'logs' directory, which is located in the current working directory.

Running SBMR-ACS in-band(IB) tests:

After following steps-for-installation-of-pre-requisites steps on any Linux distro (based on AArch64) installed on the system-under-test. Run run-sbmr-acs.sh with "linux" argument. If no SBMR level is passed, the suite defaults to SBMR 3.0 baseline requirements (M4).

Note: If testing SBMR compliance for Arm SystemReady Requirements, see Guidance on SBMR Compliance for Arm SystemReady Requirements.

./run-sbmr-acs.sh linux

The logs for the IB tests will be stored in the 'logs' directory, which is located in the current working directory.

Command-line options

Option	Description	Example
-d	Run the test suite in debug mode.	./run-sbmr-acs.sh oob -d
-l LEVEL --level LEVEL	Run tests for a specific SBMR requirement level, including historical levels and future requirements.	./run-sbmr-acs.sh oob --level M1 ./run-sbmr-acs.sh linux -l M2.1 ./run-sbmr-acs.sh oob --level FR

Customizing test execution

Action	Command
Generate an OOB Robot Framework argument file.	./bin/generate_level_argumentfile.py --suite oob --level M3 --output logs/sbmr-acs-oob-M3.args
Run tests using a generated argument file.	robot --argumentfile config --argumentfile logs/sbmr-acs-oob-M3.args .
Run or skip selected test cases using tags.	robot --argumentfile config --include TEST_TAG1 --exclude TEST_TAG2 . Example: robot --argumentfile config --include M2_OOB_1_Redfish_Host_PowerOn --include M2_OOB_1_Redfish_Host_PowerOff --exclude M2_OOB_1_Redfish_Host_ForceRestart .
Use separate argument files for included and excluded tags.	robot --argumentfile config --argumentfile include.args --argumentfile exclude.args . Note: The include and exclude argument files should contain the required Robot Framework --include and --exclude options.

Guidance on SBMR Compliance for Arm SystemReady Requirements

For Arm SystemReady band compliance on physical servers, Arm SystemReady Requirements SRS v3.1.1 mandates SBMR v2.1 or later, with minimum SBMR level M2.1.

SBMR-ACS supports the following execution modes for this requirement:

• Out-of-band testing: run Mode 1 from Execution modes with --level M2.1.
• In-band testing: run Mode 2 directly on the system under test with --level M2.1, or use the SystemReady-band ACS image.

When running SBMR-ACS standalone for SystemReady band compliance, execute both out-of-band and in-band tests with the explicit SBMR level. For example:

./run-sbmr-acs.sh oob --level M2.1
./run-sbmr-acs.sh linux --level M2.1

For in-band testing through the SystemReady-band ACS image, the required SBMR level information is passed by the automation scripts and no explicit action is required.

Additional Reading

Refer to the following documents for manual sideband testing guidance and the detailed SBMR testcase checklist:

• Sideband Manual Testing
• SBMR Testcase Checklist

Test Layout

Test Layout in sbmr-acs repository can be classified as follows:

bin/: Contains helper scripts for generating argument files, selecting versions, and validating plug-ins.

data/: Contains test data, variable definitions, schema lists, boot lists, and lookup tables used by the suite.

docs/: Contains testcase checklists and manual testing documentation.

extended/: Contains extended boot and keyword execution test cases.

host/: Contains host interface and SBMR self-declaration test cases.

ipmi/: Contains IPMI in-band and out-of-band test cases.

lib/: Contains Robot Framework resources and Python libraries used by the test cases.

redfish/: Contains Redfish out-of-band test cases.

redfish/dmtf_tools/: Contains test cases that run DMTF Redfish validation tools.

redfish/host_interface/: Contains Redfish Host Interface test cases.

test_lists/: Contains SBMR rule metadata used to generate level-specific test lists.

tools/: Contains Robot Framework linting rules and supporting tool configuration.

config: Contains runtime configuration parameters such as BMC credentials, SOL settings, Virtual Media settings, and SBMR self-declaration flags.

License

SBMR ACS is distributed under Apache v2.0 License.

Feedback, contributions, and support

• For feedback, use the GitHub Issue Tracker that is associated with this repository.
• For support, send an email to "support-systemready-acs@arm.com" with details.
• Arm licensees may contact Arm directly through their partner managers.
• Arm welcomes code contributions through GitHub pull requests. See GitHub documentation on how to raise pull requests.

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